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Prompt - The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.

Essay -

There is perhaps no domain which has been the subject of more intensive study and research than the effect of positive and negative reinforcements for pedagogy. Despite the massive volume of research, or perhaps exactly because of it, there is a lack of consensus on this issue. While a school of thought focuses only on positive reinforcements, i.e., rewarding positive actions while ignoring negative ones, the other school of thought works on negative reinforcement, i.e., punishing negative actions while largely ignoring positive ones. While both schools have their own merit, a mixed approach based on both schools would be the most desirable. Hence, I would disagree with the notion that the best way to teach is to only praise positive actions while ignoring negative ones.

The first teachers that any child has are their parents. Parents are tasked with teaching the most basic societal norms and habits, as well as the most fundamental knowledge that a child should possess (how to speak, read, write, etc.). The former would include encouraging certain activities, but also the need to discourage certain activities that a child might unknowingly pick up. If these negative habits (for example, wrong tableside manners, etc.) are not weaned off at an earlier age, the child may face problems later in their life. To ignore such negative habits, thus, could prove to be ultimately harmful for the child’s life, even if done with the best intention of not hurting the child.

When a child enters formal schooling, his ambit of knowledge slowly increases. To make sure that the knowledge the child is picking up is accurate, a system of evaluation is used by most schooling systems around the world (although the method of evaluation varies very largely). In such evaluation, the purpose is not only to reward positive actions, but also to discourage negative ones. Such discouragement need not be through harsh methods, merely informing the students of the negative actions is sufficient. But to ignore them would be to imperil the student’s future, since they would be none the wiser about the shortcomings in their knowledge and skills.

The main criticism of negative reinforcements has been that they are harsh and cruel upon the learner. But that is more a criticism of the method of negative reinforcement, not reinforcement in itself. There is often a false dichotomy made between ignoring negative actions, and harshly punishing for them. But punishment need not be harsh; it can be gentle and more informative than punishing. The objective is to discourage a certain activity and improve actions in the future. That is possible through subtly bringing to the notice of the learner the mistake which they have made. This can be an alternative to completely ignoring negative actions, or punishing harshly for them.

This is not to say that positive reinforcements are not important. In fact, positive reinforcements through praising positive actions should form the bulk of the teaching experience, and would be highly enjoyable and satisfying for the pupil. But to completely ignore negative actions would be an extremity that would be to the detriment of the learner. Teaching, much like life itself, is about balance. Since a pupil would do some rights and some wrongs, the appropriate balance between praising positive actions and discouraging negative actions needs to be applied.