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I am talking about literally asking for kids' time/attention by offering them candies: not giving them tasks about summing real candies, etc.
I try to teach math from time to time to my relatives of different ages and noticed that the main problem in teaching is just capturing kids' attention. Most of the time kids do what you ask them to do, but express their tedium, though they get really excited when it's something about candies. However I have concerns about usage of candies when doing math.
From math history I noticed that most natural mathematicians knew the whole school math before even attending school, for example from Wikipedia:

Gauss was barely three years old he corrected a math error his father made; and that when he was seven, he confidently solved an arithmetic series problem (commonly said to be 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 98 + 99 + 100) faster than anyone else in his class of 100 students

(from paper source I have info regarding last problem is that Gauss had read Number theory textbook prior to school where exact same problem was discussed)
... and Pascal:

Pascal's father intended to save his son from doing math too early, but Pascal young secretly read Euclid's Elements and gave 3 additional proofs of triangles inequalities at age of 5

I guess kids can get motivated to do math just to help their parents to do their regular everyday job, but it's not an option for me, so the only left for me is to abuse the primal obsession for food ^^. Also, when there is more than one kid participating in doing math, competition factor will take place when kid who gets involved in a most energetic way is rewarded more as well.

I can't materialize my concerns about such approach, but it somehow unpleasantly resembles me of the way people train animals. Is it an appropriate way to treat people and especially young ones? Are there any research regarding such topic or maybe some well-known statement about it?

Slaus
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    If you were a professional teacher you would know to not give students any food. Some kids may have allergies, sugar intake is not healthy, candies will likely be cheap and crappy, the parents may be against it, you may be sued. Many reasons to not do that. If they are not mature enough to learn without being treated like circus puppies, then just wait for them to get older. Alternatively, you may want to change your approach and style to teaching math, maybe it is just too boring. – Rusty Core Sep 23 '20 at 18:34
  • @RustyCore thanks for pointing that! They're my relatives, yes, I stated that. And also, sweets are of good quality for sure: no sugar at least ofc (based on erythritol), etc. I could maybe enlarge the proposition to just giving kids something they like in exchange for their attention, but I had to be honest that sweets are the best. – Slaus Sep 23 '20 at 18:39
  • @RustyCore you stated treated like circus puppies implying it's bad - that's exactly what I asked about, because I also think it's bad, but can't figure out why (maybe it's not). Actually, philosophically enough, humans can be defined as monkeys with ability to pass info from one generation to another (which is called math). And I've seen monkeys getting trained on some things waaay better humans can ^^. – Slaus Sep 23 '20 at 18:50
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    There is no long-term statistics (like, hundreds of years) regarding sugar substitutes, so I personally stay away from them. Also, they taste bad. Do not give anything "in exchange". Learning and having fun while doing that (or if not having fun, then having realization of doing something important) should be enough. – Rusty Core Sep 23 '20 at 18:51
  • @RustyCore Also, kids are always pretty happy around me and jump on me every time they see me, but when it comes to doing math, it's always just something they do in favor because we're friends - definitely not something they're happy to participate in. With all respect, I really doubt one (you?) can teach math so that kids are eager to hear and do. Also the age point: I presumably stated how mathematicians are getting somehow taught math at age of 3, so waiting out is just accepting the defeat. – Slaus Sep 23 '20 at 18:55
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    Math from Three to Seven: The Story of a Mathematical Circle for Preschoolers is a journal, written by a Russian parent who ran a "math circle" for his children and children of his friends for several years. It is not a textbook, but may be of interest to you. – Rusty Core Sep 23 '20 at 18:59
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    @RustyCore thank you very much for such reference! Such shame I didn't see it in my local stores ^^ – Slaus Sep 23 '20 at 19:03
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    External motivations are usually very ineffective in influencing the behavior of humans. I don't think Gauss learned arithmetic at an early age because someone offered him candy. –  Sep 23 '20 at 19:52
  • @BenCrowell thank you for your comment. Why you think it wasn't the reason and what's your suggestion about what it could be? Thanks in advance. – Slaus Sep 23 '20 at 21:43
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    @Slaus: There are two pieces to this: (1) External motivations. I think this is a pretty widely accepted fact in motivational psychology or whatever. I'm not a specialist, but I don't think it's controversial. You can certainly learn more and more reliable info than I can provide if you just look up a summary/popularization of the research on this. [...] –  Sep 23 '20 at 23:31
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    (2) Making the next Gauss. A nice book on this kind of thing is Ridley, Nature via Nurture. To condense Ridsley's analysis into a very brief comment, people have genes that predispose them to being good at certain things, e.g., math for Gauss, or music for Mozart. Because they have those genes, they enjoy experiences in those areas. So although the experiences would normally be considered to be part of the environment, not their genetic endowment, the experiences are ones that they enjoy and repeatedly seek out because of their genetic endowment. –  Sep 23 '20 at 23:31
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    Just to clarify Ben Crowell's point: while extrinsic motivation can initially be effective, eventually it tends to crowd out intrinsic motivation. Wikipedia has a useful overview and links to studies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation_crowding_theory – Stephan Kubicki Sep 24 '20 at 03:56
  • @BenCrowell sorry, but I'm strongly against relying on genes causality - it just doesn't give any use. For example, it's recently discovered that some genes require for certain foods to be eaten to get activated, so it's strictly the env (place+culture) that define your genes, but it's tempting to just state that you'll need another set of genes that will crave you those foods. So, you will eventually get stuck on relying on "faith" which is just a synonym for "genes". – Slaus Sep 24 '20 at 07:46
  • @BenCrowell Also, every human should get accustomed to math, because math just makes people plainly stronger and every living being intrinsically desires to get stronger. If one didn't like math, he/she just was exposed to it in a wrong way. ~98% of people I personally meet can't tell how much %% 78 is of 86 and think that math is only about summing very big numbers, but all of them was learning math for ~10 years! Imagine yourself going to waterpool multiple times and still being unaware of what swimming is about! – Slaus Sep 24 '20 at 08:16
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    If you are expecting kids who will be as interested in math as Gauss and Pascal, then your expectations aren't realistic. Kids have natural curiosity. Just keep giving them opportunities to learn and something will spark their interest. I wouldn't overuse candy as bribes/rewards. – Amy B Sep 24 '20 at 08:49
  • @BenCrowell e.g. let x be a box containing 5 apples and same box of half the size (recursive)=5+2.5+1.25+...- one just never gets to the solution, but simple algebra x=5+x²=10; irrationality of √2 completely changes perception of the world, e.i. this video implies world can be sorted simple->complex way, but √2 proofs it's not: basic ~2500 years old math, but still wasn't merged into geek pop culture. R.W.Hamilton needed 10 years for simple i²=j²=k²=-1; were he twice more stupid he still would be 100 years ahead - genes don't matter. – Slaus Sep 24 '20 at 09:33
  • @AmyB thank you for your comment. My problem is that kids in my disposal are not Gauss and Pascal (they're not worse in any sense though!), so that's why I do have a question stated on this page about motivating them with sweets. As a side note, I have a presumption that something was done to Gauss/Pascal/... making them love math so much, so I'm in a search for what it is (having sweets as a best candidate; if you have a better suggestion please elaborate if it's not about genes): their mentors could be nice to them only when they're doing math and so on and so on ... – Slaus Sep 24 '20 at 14:35
  • Related: This answer and possibly others in this search. – Dave L Renfro Sep 24 '20 at 16:11
  • I am not sure that I agree with your presumption that something was done to Gauss/Pascal/... making them love math so much. Different people love/enjoy different things and while you can motivate kids to work at things I am not sure you can motivate them to love/enjoy them. If you want them to enjoy math, then you have to enjoy it and share that enjoyment and it still may not be enough. If you want them to work at it, then give them rewards if it will help. – Amy B Sep 24 '20 at 17:28
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    @Slaus: You're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. It's well established that there is a very significant genetic component to mathematical ability. In this time when reason and science are under attack by populist authoritarianism, it's especially important to admit that experts know what they're doing. –  Sep 24 '20 at 19:17
  • If these are not your own children, you should not be giving them any food of any kind. I just read the comment thread and saw this was covered already. But then I read that instead of giving them sugared candy that will make them fat and make their teeth fall out, you're going to be giving them artificial sweeteners that they may be allergic to or that may give them diarrhea. – shoover Sep 24 '20 at 22:12
  • @BenCrowell the only thing you do is repeating that some facts are just facts. I gave you the reference about example of how even foods affect your genes - got completely ignored. I think you highly overestimate our (humanity's) knowledge of humans functioning. We don't even know what math is. If there would be some knowledge about genes-defined predisposition towards math it would be way more serious and obvious. We already paid for our mistakes of measuring human's skull proportions and etc. – Slaus Sep 25 '20 at 09:43

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My experience is small rewards and games (e.g. with candy) spark interest from the kids, in any sort of teaching/coaching, so math should be no different. It is not purely gluttony, but the sense of play with a reward, even small. Even with adults, it is very effective. For instance a cheap bottle of champagne, even with corporate execs making several six figures, will perk them up in a training session, especially if competitive. And the small reward somehow makes it more meaningful than just brag rights.

Note: This is more of a practical "ed" question, ape-psychology than a "math" question. But these are completely relevant here. As the human in the loop is part of the issue. Not just definitional correctness.

I don't see any issue with the sweets either. Then again, I brought jack knives to school as a little boy, because little boys love jack knives. No Columbine threat... ;-)

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  • A bottle of champagne has no intrinsic value, it is just a token in a competition. When I was a schoolkid, my English teacher awarded red disks, cut out of paper, for participation and good answers. We counted them after the end of each lesson, then tallied at the end of each week. The tally was visible to everyone, so all kids could see who were the hardworking ones, and who was slacking off. But if you have just one kid, rewarding with tokens does not work because there is no competition, and rewarding with candies moves the focus from learning to candies, turning kids into circus puppies. – Rusty Core Sep 25 '20 at 17:34