Bronx charter school's entire curriculum is based on the marshmallow test. [View All]

[madfloridian]

KIPP Bronx charter school principal, Joe Negron, says they have a very big culture of "earning" at their school. My first reaction was that there should be the letter "L" at the start of the word...learning, not earning.

There are different levels of learning and knowledge, and delayed gratification in my opinion plays only a small role.

Basing a whole school's policy on the Marshmallow test from the 1960s that only involved 35 children? They could have one marshmallow, or they could wait and get another.

Maybe they just didn't like marshmallows enough to wait for another.

'Marshmallow Test' May Help Predict Kids' Success

"The ability to take the future into account, to control behavior for the sake of delayed consequences, to resist temptation," Dr. Mischel says.

At KIPP Infinity charter school in the Bronx, the entire curriculum is based on the marshmallow test.

"We have a very big culture of earning at our school," Principal Joe Negron says.

Negron says from getting a locker to going on a field trip, students must wait for – and earn – all privileges.
"They begin to realize that, just like in life, your good behaviors will result in you earning more things later on," Negron says.

Negron seems very concerned with "earning". He uses the word frequently. I would prefer he be more concerned about "learning."

Rewards are fine, but real learning involves a level of communication way beyond anything as simplistic as the Marshmallow Test.

The Marshmallow Test is said to be an indicator of success in later life. It may be. But we should not base our education system on it.

The pictures from the tests are cute and appealing, but I think there is more to the learning process.

More on the test.

A child's ability to delay gratification for 15 minutes pays educational dividends years later, studies find


In the Marshmallow Test, a child can have one treat immediately, or two if he can wait 15 minutes. The ability to wait is called "executive function." KEITH BEATY/TORONTO STAR

The Marshmallow Test got its name from an experiment at Stanford University in the 1960s on 4-year-old nursery school pupils. Researchers told children that they could have one thing they really wanted right away – a marshmallow, or a candy or a cookie, for example – but if they could wait while the researcher left the room and came back about 15 minutes later, they could have two.

It was designed to test self-control. The researchers, led by psychologist Walter Mischel, found only about 30 per cent of more than 600 children tested could hold out.

That's as far as it went until the early 1980s, when Mischel followed up and discovered the children who had been able to wait for two marshmallows were also doing better academically.

Of course self-discipline plays a role in learning. But it is only one part.

I remember I just loved school. I loved reading just to find out new things. I could not wait for the next trip to the city library to check out more books. There were no other motives with me back then. I just loved to learn.

I think I would have viewed the Marshmallow Test with skepticism if it were given to me.
I have taught many kids who would have caught on that they were being manipulated by that marshmallow there on a plate.

I tend to agree with this Daily Beast blog post from February of this year.

Just let them eat the marshmallow.

Judging a kid's ability to delay gratification by whether they eat a marshmallow or not is a ridiculous way of predicting their future achievement, say Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

No behavioral game has gained more publicity in the last year than Dr. Walter Mischel’s “marshmallow test,” an assessment of children’s impulse control. Four-year-olds are put at a table in a blank room, with a marshmallow in front of them. They’re told that if they can wait until the experimenter comes back, they’ll get two marshmallows to eat. Writing about this in The New Yorker last spring, Jonah Lehrer reported that preschoolers who waited the full 15 minutes grew into teens with SAT scores that were, on average, 215 points higher than the tots who ate the marshmallow in the first 30 seconds.

.." Is the Marshmallow Task as accurate (or better) than any other test, and thus the answer to early testing?

Sorry, but no.

First, it’s the easiest test in the world to fool. Parents can just promise their kid a pony if they don’t eat any marshmallows or cookies during the evaluation session. Second, reportage of the marshmallow study has obfuscated just how few kids were included in Mischel’s analysis. While 550 kids participated in the experiment, Mischel only tracked down SAT scores for 94 kids. The vast majority of those kids did not participate in the original, classic marshmallow task. Instead, their marshmallow was covered from view, or they were given a pretend scenario to distract themselves with. In these other conditions, if a kid could hold out for 15 minutes, it meant their SAT scores were much lower, not higher. The correlation was negative.

It was actually only 35 kids who did the classic test—17 boys and 18 girls. How long they waited was a lot worse predictor for the boys than the girls. And while about a third waited the full 15 minutes, it was only a handful of kids who ate the marshmallow in less than 30 seconds.

There is so much lately of one-trick ponies in education. In our district they go from one simplistic method to another, not realizing that there is no one right answer to education. Basing a whole school on the delayed gratification theory of success is one of them.

Gimmicks do not solve the problems of education.

The best and deepest learning occurs when there is optimum communication and respect between teacher and student.

The new rush to make it all about one major test which overrides daily grades and teacher-made tests...is stupifying.

The new assumption that turning schools into charters or contract schools will solve everything is ludicrous.

The Marshmallow test, and other such tests, have a place in learning. But to base the philosophy of a whole school on it is just plain wrong.