" This idea that children won't learn without outside rewards and penalties, or in the debased jargon of the behaviorists, " positive and negative reinforcements," usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we treat children long enough as if that were true, they will come to believe it is true. So many people have said to me, " If we didn't make children do things, they wouldn't do anything." Even worse, they say, " If I weren't made to do things, I wouldn't do anything." It is the creed of a slave. "