Photo courtesy of Stockvault
Okay, I don’t know about you. But if I didn’t know—or care—that my kid was truant from school regularly, I don’t think a free plate of curry is going to change my ways. But apparently it works in jolly old England.
At least, that’s what the Daily Telegraph reports. Apparently, truancy rates have dropped by half since the Glenfield Infant School, in Southampton, began “offering parents the chance to win a meal worth £40 if their children miss fewer than 5 percent of their classes.”
The practice has garnered some criticism from those who see the prize as a form of bribery for doing what the law-and one’s parental responsibilities-demand.
“It is a legal requirement to bring your children to school,” one teacher union leader complained. “But this gives out the message that you don’t do anything in life unless there is a reward. If a parent doesn’t send their child to school, they should get a prison sentence, not a curry. It’s bribery, totally inappropriate, and bordering on lunacy.”
Darned right. I never cottoned to the multitude of bribes that U.S. schools have been guilty of offering over the years. Pizza for reading a book? Cash for simply showing up at school?
Sorry. I’m a bit old school. If you want to convince students to read a book, I say you stick the brats into a quiet room, and if their minds begin to wander, you whack them on the knuckles. Or if students play hooky, send the police after them-and then make them actually do homework during detention rather than sit around socializing with the other misfits.
Of course, I might change my tune if the bribe was a little more appetizing-say, a Hawaiian pizza with anchovies. Curry? Yick. Then again, you could use the insidious strategy that my school used against me as a kid. You could engage your wayward students with a learning experience that’s rewarding and intellectually stimulating.
After all, kids only avoid places they don’t like. So what does that say about your schools?
Del Stover, Senior Editor
