‘Climb a tree, catch a fish’: primary school in China offers fun, practical experience prizes to motivate students instead of material awards
- A school in China has discovered that students are no longer interested in traditional incentives and has stopped giving out paper awards
- Now, students who perform well academically are offered rewards like tree climbing and fishing lessons as motivators to learn
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A primary school in eastern China has been praised on mainland social media after it launched an innovative initiative to reward high-performing students with “practice experience” such as tree climbing and fishing instead of trophies, prize ribbons and paper awards.
Since the start of the current school term, a Quzhou primary school in Zhejiang province has rewarded students with good grades from winter break exams with tree climbing practice.
“Everybody is thrilled”, physical education teacher Lan Xunxin told Litchi News. “The kids haven’t had such experiences during their childhood.”
School principal Tong Weihao said the school had discovered that students were no longer interested in traditional incentives like awards. Since last school term they stopped giving out material awards and started adopting new methods to motivate students.
“We want to offer more opportunities for the kids to explore nature,” Tong said.
The principal said he had fond memories of his own childhood growing up in a village where he and his friends entertained themselves with outdoor activities just like what the school is now trying to recreate with tree climbing and fishing “practice experience”.
Tong believed that he could leverage those outdoor practices into modern teaching styles, given the school is located in a village surrounded by the natural environment.
The move by the school has received significant interest on mainland social media.
“The school’s initiative is very interesting,” remarked one person.
Another person said: “I still remember that painful yet happy moment when I fell off a persimmon tree when I was little.”
In October, a primary school in eastern China’s Zhejiang province established an outdoor kitchen for students to learn how to cook basic meals.
