INTRODUCTION

The topic of using positive and negative reinforcement in academia settings has brought about much tension and debate, with some deeming it an effective incentive for student success. In this speech, I will look at this phenomenon regarding its effects on students, both of its present and future implications.

BODY DEVELOPMENT

1. Positive Reinforcement 

• Instill upon impressionable and less than perfect adolescents a sense of discipline and mould them into respectable and responsible adults. 
• For one, students who attend academic bodies, excluding postgraduates and doctorate pursuers, are often of an age where they have yet to know the importance of self-discipline and have yet to acquire the skills of time-management and responsibility.
• This doesn’t mean that they are incapable of doing so, no, but rather it means that schools could also serve an auxiliary purpose of equipping these children, teenagers and young adults with these necessary aforementioned skills so that they may thrive, both in academia and in life.
• To advance this further, positive reinforcement, with the right application, could also serve to set the precedent for students’ development.
• What I mean by this is that by rewarding students for exemplary actions and good behaviors, we set the precedent for them to develop commendable attitudes, for them to develop a healthy mindset regarding work and for these to later combine and create successful employees, productive workers and dependable co-workers of the future. 
• As a case in point, the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnagie outlined a particular case of construction workers whose productivity and job-loyalty both rocketed after receiving more positive reinforcement. This is a powerful example of the effect rewards could have on people, whether just verbal praise or monetary incentives.

2. Negative Reinforcement 

• On the other hand, a reliance on extrinsic motivations could rob students of any autonomy they may have. 
• Were we to rely only upon rewards and punishments to push our students to learn, to study and to develop, we could only be making robots who work on the high of a previous reward, a promise of the next and the avoidance of accosment and assault. 
• Especially at such a crucial and developmental time frame where the groundworks for the rest of these growing children, growing adolescents are laid, an overreliance on external incentive could kill any hope of initiative and autonomy.
• Furthermore, in academia specifically where negative reinforcement is a bad idea [Specialized words and phrases such as these are good even if they’re relatively simple to employ sometimes!], as it models and conditions violence.
• To dive into this further, teaching our children to resort to punishment to solve problems would only lead to model this behavior – “to a hammer every problem looks like a nail”, to these victims of abuse, violence will be the solution to their every problems.
• This could lead to an advanced rate of bullying in schools, violence and crime in society but, most disastrous of all, a disinterest in learning and education, fostering self-punishment and hatred, disillusioning students to all of academia.
• As such, rewards and punishments are merely the “band-aid” solution: they do not tackle students’ issues at their roots and, hence, do not contribute to convincing students to learn.

OPINION

• I remember one time I achieved a score so bad while preparing for this very competition that I almost dropped everything on the spot, I very much wanted to quit everything and just fall of the face of the Earth. That is why I am a big advocate for the disallowance of negative reinforcement, as it is not a productive motivation for learning while only serving as a reminder of students’ weaknesses, drawbacks, and of none of their strengths. In this day and age, we should strive to be a more empathetic and caring society, starting from the seedlings of the future [Storytelling: Including a personal anecdote is fair game in speaking and you should utilize your personal stories to inspire and to captivate the listener — a good story could set you apart from the thousand other sound arguments of your competitors!]

CONCLUSION

• As extrinsic motivation only serve as a temporary and non-permanent solution to students success and could bring about many other problems while hiding the root cause, I am of the opinion that it is both unnecessary and a hindrance to student success, and is a phantom of the past that society is ready to move on from.