Pop Tabs

I've hit on the goldmine of extrinsic motivation. Simple, cheap, and ridiculously ordinary.

Pop tabs.

Let me first post this disclaimer that I am a hardcore Kohn fan...it has only been through an extremely challenging class that I have decided to take the path of least resistance. It's not an option to not teach my students anything this year, so dangle the carrot I must.

Here's the spiel: whatever result I am looking for can earn a kid a pop tab. There are plain silver ones, and there are extra special colored ones.I can up the ante whenever I need to.

When the kids earn 25 tabs, I bring them (the pop tabs, not the kids) home and make them a bracelet that looks something like this:

Ask me how great of an idea I think it is when I'm making 22 bracelets.

I always say, if you're going to do something, you might as well do it big.