[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I can't speak for anyone else, but I wasn't saying that the librarian's plan was good. I was just arguing against the position that this was a case of tall poppy syndrome. My impression is that most of us arguing against that position also believe that using competition to foster a love of reading is misguided. So, there seems to be consent that she screwed up, but disagreement on exactly what the screw-up was.

This goes beyond not being good for the stated purpose. This makes no sense for the stated purpose.

Sure there is the fact that the librarian has no evidence that removing the incentive to read as many books as possible will make kids read more, but the timing for changing the rules is all wrong. Unless she just planed on publicly embarrassing the kid. I mean it was made clear that everybody was aware of who reads the most books. By the rules of the club, the kid who reads the most books would get the acknowledgment with a prize that on occasion was a certificate of acknowledgment. She planned on changing the rules before the announcement of the winner explaining how this overachieving kid was taking the joy out of participating for everyone else.

Getting a public lecture instead of the prize that you worked for seems pretty demoralizing, so either the librarian hates overachievers on principle, or is personally set against this one.

Originally Posted by Jovvi

Ok, so a kid that hates reading probably would'nt join such a reading club and will not discover the "joy of reading" that way.

Hey, hold on there, do you mind moving that goal post back? Nobody talked about children that hate reading being in the club. In case you missed it, I don't even agree with your opinion that there are children in the club who haven't found the joy of reading.

Originally Posted by Jovvi

However there are a lot of kids that "like" reading but are a bit slower and there are those that are just beginning to like reading, to get to the point where it is no a struggle anymore. They are probably the kids that the librarian where aiming for, trying tho encourage them. She went about it in the wrong way (I think) and made it a competition that the kid that read fastest won. She then wrongly "blamed" him when it was her rules that missed the target, instead of just rewarding him and then change the rules. When media then called (because the mom called them being upset that her son would possible not win anymore) she could just have said "we wanted to try a new model this year/next year"

The mom didn't call being upset that her son would possible not win anymore. She called because she thought that her son's efforts were about to be acknowledged for the fifth time. The librarian hadn't changed the rules at this point. She got upset that she can't change them now.

Originally Posted by Jovvi

It's not wrong with competition, but if the goal is to get more kids to read you don't want them to quit before they have even tried, wich some kids will if they feel the have "no chance" to win. Sure, some kids may go on anyway but most kids stay far away from activities they feel a failure at, as do most adults. People don't wan't to be a failure if they can choose not to be. Setting to high goals that most can't reach will stop people from participating. To challenge people is another thing, that you do by setting the goal high but reachable.

All kids that go to school read. The goal is to get them to read more by introducing them to new topics, and by getting them focused on reading for the duration of 6 weeks. It's not like they don't know this kid from school or from the library, and they don't know that he reads more than them even without a book club or competition in sight.