Austin Scholar #124: How a Chick-fil-a lunch got a whole school to improve their test scores by an entire grade level
& proof that I’ve become a self-driven learner
Hey, y'all!
This week from Austin Scholar...
Austin’s Anecdote: Proof that I’ve become a self-driven learner
How a Chick-fil-a lunch got a whole school to improve their test scores by an entire grade level
Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been up to…
Since I’ve gotten back from my senior trip, I’ve spent a ton of time with my family – definitely annoying my sister with the number of hugs she’s received. I’m getting a lot more worried about not seeing them while I’m at college and have considered the best ways to kidnap my sister and hide her in my dorm room so I can hear her snarky remarks in person instead of over the phone (for legal reasons, this is a joke).
Austin’s Anecdote: Proof that I’ve become a self-driven learner
Alpha crushes exams.
Seriously crushes exams.
Below is a graph comparing Alpha students to both Austin ISD, Eanes ISD (considered one of the best districts in Texas), and Texas as a whole.
Alpha students just blow everyone else out of the water.
How? Our kids care about exams.
For a lot of teens, it feels safer to not try than to try and fail. On TikTok after AP exam scores come out, there are thousands of videos of kids saying things like “me getting a 2 on AP Lit after writing the lyrics to All Too Well (10 minute version) for all of my essays.” It feels less embarrassing to purposely get a bad score than to risk one.
But the real goal of school should be to get kids to see themselves as good learners – people who can succeed if they try.
For example, this year, I took AP European History for literally no reason at all.
Like… seriously no reason.
Stanford doesn’t take AP Euro as any type of credit and I’d already gotten into Stanford so there was no need to try and impress them with my score anymore. In fact, I probably won’t even send them my final score.
I gained nothing at all for spending hours and hours studying for the exam and taking it – and even doing well enough to get a 5.
So why did I take it at all? Because it’s fun.
I’m confident enough in my academic abilities to know that I can succeed if I put in the effort and spending a few extra hours a week talking about Europe’s many wars and philosophies with my friends genuinely made me happy.
I’ve truly become a self-driven learner. No rewards are necessary for me to spend my time learning something new.
How a Chick-fil-a lunch got a whole school to improve their test scores by an entire grade level
I guess the question then becomes: how does Alpha get kids (who often don’t see themselves as good students or have an intrinsic love of learning) to do well?
The answer’s simple: extrinsic rewards.
Alpha uses extrinsic rewards to motivate kids until they see themselves as good students – and eventually you can take the extrinsic reward away
But until students are ready to be self-driven, the extrinsic rewards can be very powerful.
Alpha did a great experiment a couple of months ago.
All of the students (K-8) took an end-of-year exam without an incentives – they were told that the exam was just to see how much they’d learned throughout the year. Unfortunately, the kids did worse than expected (Alpha has projections of how well the students should do based on the app work they completed over the year.)
The guides then brought all of the kids together and told them that if they retook the test and did as was expected, they could get Chick-Fil-A for lunch.
The kids retook the exam just two days later and, miraculously, collectively scored an entire grade level higher.
The only thing that changed was the promise of Chick-Fil-A.
What can you as a parent do, then, to support your kid?