Imagine you're a teacher and all of your students are answering questions and doing all their work. It would be really nice to know that your kids are doing all of this because of you. Many students don’t like to do work in class because most of them ask themselves “What's the point? We aren’t getting anything out of doing it!”. They are right, unless they have motivation. Everyone has a motive for something. For example, mowing the lawn, you do it either because it is your job and how you get money, or just so your lawn doesn’t look like a total mess. For students, they need a good motivation, like a pizza party, or a prize box. In fact, there have even been scientific studies that show the results of offering rewards. 

 When students work, they are most likely working towards something. High school students might work towards getting into the college they want to be in, however younger kids don’t have as much to work towards. When a student is in kindergarten, all they think about is seeing their friends. That changes over time, and they don’t have motivation to do the actual work. Since they aren’t getting anything out of it, why should they? That is where the teacher comes in. They offer rewards, using fake money, beads, or even digital points. According to The Classroom Reward System: A Guide for Teachers, “Students like rewards. Young children will gladly earn vouchers they can trade for prizes. High school teachers note with surprise that even teenagers save sparkly stickers. Even college football coaches give helmet stickers to players for making a good play.”. Based on this statement, I can tell that there are many rewards to be given out across all ages. Vouchers are a great way to do this because then, the teacher doesn’t have to worry about every single score. In fact, they can tailor the vouchers so that they cannot be copied and fakes cannot be made.

 There are many sites that say that awarding students increases success rates. "The Influence of School's Reward Systems on Students' Development." says that “When the teacher offers suggestions of improving grades and gives rewards after students are doing better, students’ performance enhances. A longitudinal study by the University of Illinois’s

researchers has indicated that reward is a desirable thing for students, it can serve as an outside reinforcement to increase students’ motivation to complete assignments and maintain good grades”. In fact, Montero has informed me that motivation helps students release “feel good chemicals” or dopamine into the brain. Her exact words were “There’s often the misconception that rewards are a form of bribery, but our brains are naturally hard-wired to like rewards and dislike negative consequences. When we encounter something that brings us pleasure, our brain releases a hormone and neurotransmitter called dopamine. Once this release happens, it creates a brain connection between that item, the release of dopamine, and resulting positive feelings. It is this connection that motivates us to seek out the pleasurable event or item again and again. It’s this brain science and biology that make rewards effective. ” . This helps my statement when I say that awarding students is good, because when students have good behavior in the classroom and they get rewarded, they are more motivated to do more of the good behavior. 

 The final reason that rewards are a good idea is because students look forward to getting gratuity for all the work that they do. Some popular examples of prizes are a movie day, pizza party, or just a general class party. All of these are good motives because every human being looks forward to being praised. It releases “happy juice” into our brains, and therefore makes us satisfied. This then encourages us to repeat that action over and over. Of course, these would not just be if you answer a question correctly. If you answer a question right, then you would get class currency. Eventually, everyone could pool money together for a class party. They could also get a prize from the treasure box, so they get a more individual reward. This goes to show that overall, prizes can greatly help students learning and their learning environment.

 In conclusion, students should be praised for their work with prizes. Most students work just because they are told to. In fact, handing out prizes increases students' success rates and motivation. There are many different ways to reward students,including class parties, and a treasure box. I believe that rewards in classrooms should become a norm. If you agree with me, sign my petition.