Should Teachers Invest In School Merit Stickers?

As small as stickers are, these are arguably one of the biggest investments a teacher can make. Rewards and merit gifts serve to motivate students in many ways. The more important question that teachers should focus on, however, is whether or not they should really “invest” in achievement certificates for children and other motivational rewards like school merit stickers and good news postcards from school. It is important to note that there is a difference between occasionally handing out gifts to children who performs well at school, and making it a tradition within the classroom to reward students for their hard work.
To better understand the reason why the school faculty should put some thought to creating a budget for school stickers, it is first important to understand the idea behind motivation. It is a very simple word that has a lot of meaning. Regardless of the context it is being used, motivation always carries a positive connotation. One issue with motivation is that different people tend to have a variety of preference, so not one and the same object will serve to motivate everybody. The same is true for young students.
In a real-life working environment, motivation exists in form of bonuses, promotions and gift certificates. These motivations have undeniably positive outcomes. That is the reason why companies, even the larger companies in the market, include rewards and motivational gifts in their company budget.
A school should do the same for similar reasons. A school environment shares a lot in similarity with a professional working environment. Students, especially little children, may not take tasks seriously. They are always more interested to play in the dirt than to do scribbles on paper. Short of being patient, there is not much a teacher can do in order to prevent students from doing what they love to do most – to play.
Fortunately there is one workaround. And it apparently involves the use of school merit stickers. Among many other things that a teacher can use to reward children, merit stickers are very effective. Did we mention that children love to play? If there is one thing that could compete with their urge to run around outside chasing other kids, that would be bragging a new interesting prize to friends. What is more is that children are easily impressed. Teachers can take this as an advantage by showing them new flashy items often. In case the teacher is on a budget, stickers should do the trick.
An alternative to stickers is a certificate. Achievement certificates work better for older students, such as the ones who are already in grade school. Younger children in kindergarten can make do with stickers for the meantime. For older students, good news postcards from schools would also work effectively.
If the child’s first priority is to have fun, and his second priority is to display their new interesting finds to friends, the third would be to show off to their parents. Stickers, postcards and certificates are all perfect for this.
Going back to the topic, it now becomes quickly evident why teachers should spend money on merit stickers. Even though these may seem trivial and simple, they are nonetheless very appropriate. Children are also trivial and simple. They are easy to please. More importantly, it does not always have to be expensive to make children happy.
Teachers who want to promote great relationships in the family could easily do that by sending their students home with a good news postcard from school. It is easy to imagine a hundred different things that are considerably good from a parent’s perspective. Alternatively, teachers can use a more direct approach and send their students home with achievement certificates for children. The fact that their kids are jumping up and down brandishing a certificate from school already makes a happy parent. As long as everyone is kept happy, learning can be made more fun and effective. These are only some of the great reasons why teachers should invest on school merit stickers, among other motivational rewards for their students. It would be a great idea to have the entire school faculty involved and come up with a program to implement in the entire school. Something that takes advantage of motivation to improve the learning curve would definitely be amazing.