I’m at a secondary school during exam time. Some of the classrooms have been taken over for those exams. There are signs on the door. NO ENTRY in red. EXAMS IN PROGRESS. Three teenage girls come to the door. They are about fourteen. They see that they can’t go to their usual class later that day, and they don’t know where to go instead. They find a teacher who looks it up. They have been re-roomed to G6. She writes on the door in red pen. ‘Well done girls’ she says, ‘For noticing that in advance’. One of the girls is quick. ‘Can I have an achievement point?’ she asks. The teacher thinks. ‘Okay’, she says. ‘Tell your teacher that Mrs. Terry says you can have an achievement point’. The girls go off. I’m left wondering what strange world has been created where teenagers ask for achievement points – and teachers give them – for behaviour which is entirely unremarkable and in their own interests. We immerse our children in this culture young. These young people have been trained methodically since they were four. It started with Star of the Week certificates and stickers for ‘Being Helpful’. They’ve been incentivised and sanctioned and invited to reward teas and doughnuts with the headteacher for being 'students who impress'. They've seen what happens to those who don't make the grade, when they're left out of Celebration Pizza Lunch or not allowed to join in non-uniform day. They have been trained to be so focused on rewards that their first thought when a teacher says ‘Well done’ is ‘Will you give me an achievement point?’? If they don’t get the point, was it even worth pointing out the issue? The research shows that when people behave themselves in order to get rewards (or avoid sanctions), that behaviour doesn’t continue once the rewards stop. It looks like they are learning to behave, but in fact they are just learning to do whatever is necessary to get the rewards. The behaviour has become a means to an end, rather than something they do for its own sake. I wonder if anyone has looked at the long term impact of that on young people and their relationship with themselves. I wonder if anyone is tracking the impact on these young people’s sense of intrinsic motivation, and the way that they see themselves. I wonder, but I think I know the answer.