Reward without success One day in class Ms. Hayashi told us to read a story in a group called Harrison Bergeron. In this story there are many people who discourage differences and creativity. We had a discussion on the level of effort put into something and the reward that he/she receives in small groups and it got me really thinking about “what is happening to the level of effort that society put into taskʼs and the expectations” I think that rewards should be handed to someone if they complete something. If someone puts some effort into something but does not complete a task or puts half as much effort in and fails they should not get a reward. The reason is that the reward will tell people that they can get a prize without succeeding. This will cause people to not try as hard because they know that they can just get the prize anyway.
Also I think that a reward should be handed out to people who succeed because they strived to complete the task more then someone who thought that the could get by meeting the lowest expectation possible. This will influence positive action and will create a situation were people know that they will have to try.
In the short story “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, one of the characters (Hazel) watches a man on the television try to read a sentence. He struggles and eventually gives up. Then Hazel says, “Thatʼs all right”, “he tried. Thatʼs the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.” In the society where Hazel lives people are very unproductive and uncreative, and are taught that they will get rewarded for just trying. If the real world was like this then there would be no need for school and education in general, and the way we are heading eventually that might happen. Somehow we need to convince people to be more innovative and creative. Us as the new generation need to in force that as much as we can and strive to make the world a healthier environment.