The Kansas City Star du lieu suivant : Kansas City, Missouri • 49

Style WEDNESDAY September 5 1990 THE KANSAS CITY STAR STARGAZING A potpourri of patricians plebeians and peccadilloes 3 Section Rewarding kids may be a mistake They do sloppier work have less fun when prize is at stake studies show By ALFIE KOHN 1990 Alfie Kohn Janet Jackson will be there So will Cher MC Hammer Phil Collins Don Henley and Sinead But Panla Abdul nominated for six awards will not be at Paula Abdul night MTV Video Awards show Sources say still miffed at MTV for showing a clip from the 1 977 movie High In the film her first Abdul was heavier her voice was very shaky and the unkindest cut of all the movie was made before she had her nose fixed Papa Sean Madonna who? Sean Penn the ex-husband has other things on his mind these days namely going to be a father The new love is Princess herself actress Robin Wright whom he met last year on the set of of The pregnancy means Wright be Maid Marian opposite Kevin Costner in Hood Prince of which starts production this week in London is coming to Channel 62 KZKC will show prime-time KU and K-State basketball TAMMY UUNQBUADThe Star From left: Andrew Banks and Royce Yudkoff the new owners of KZKC and general manager Jim MacDonald By BARRY GARRON TV-Radlo Critic Big things are about to happen at KZKC Channel 62 Big as in new studios new equipment and a new antenna Big as in new programs sports and movies likely to appeal to more viewers Since it signed on nearly seven years ago Channel 62 has been the runt of Kansas TV litter Its combination of second-rate reruns and third-rate transmission all but guaranteed that it would never be seen by more than about 3 percent of the viewing audience The problem was money Without owners willing to invest in better equipment and popular programs Channel 62 was doomed to remain in the Nielsen cellar The old owners of Channel 62 ran the same programs on it and its sister stations Even the studios and offices were virtually the same The owners Media Central of Chattanooga Tenn not broadcasters they were insurance said Jim MacDonald Channel new general manager When Media Central declared bankruptcy in 1 987 Channel 62 continued to operate without the money it needed to compete with the more established TV stations But now there are two solid reasons to believe that change is on the way: Andrew Banks and Royce Yudkoff They are the partners in ABRY NEW BOSSES BIG PLANS More popular programs better signal among changes new owners plan at KzKC See NIWF-4 Col 1 The off-network reruns of "Perfect Strangers" have been acquired by Channel 62 If one thing that excites a fifth-or sixth-grader a free movie ticket So when psychologist James Garbarino asked 12 girls individually to try to teach a new game to a younger child he promised each a ticket if she did a good job He also asked another group of students to try their hand at tutoring but he said nothing to these girls about a reward Garbarino wanted to know which group would teach more effectively What he found was that those who were after the tickets took longer to communicate ideas were frustrated more easily and ended up with pupils who understand the game as well as the children who learned from girls who were not promised a reward Before dismissing these results as a fluke consider these findings from several other experiments: Children who expected to receive a prize for making collages or telling stories proved to be less imaginative at both tasks than those who promised anything Two or three weeks after being told they would get an award for drawing with felt-tip markers preschoolers were less interested in using the markers than their peers who expect to be rewarded Teen-agers who were offered a reward for remembering details of a newspaper story had poorer recall than those who received nothing for their efforts going on here? rewards motivate people? Sure They motivate people to get rewarded Unfortunately this is often at the expense of interest in or excellence at whatever it is doing Contrary to BF famous theory of positive reinforcement which suggested we perform better when we expect to get something out of it some psychologists now report it oflen make sense to use rewards to encourage children to learn create or be caring and responsible In fact a growing number of studies indicate that emphasizing grades and special privileges or even lavishing praise can be counterproductive Despite this research most people cling to the belief that children will do what we want if we make it worth their while In a well-meaning attempt to promote reading among schoolchildren for example Pizza Hut sponsors a five-month reading program called Book It! that dangles free pizza before children to induce them to read more Only half in jest John Nicholls professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago says the likely long-term consequence of this strategy is lot of fat kids who like to Nicholls says this is related to what he and other specialists call doing something just because you find it worthwhile because it seems valuable in its own right Children naturally seek out situations that arouse their curiosity and allow them to prove their competence They have to be bribed to learn new words or ideas In fact children who are intrinsically motivated are more likely to do high-quality creative work or to be well-behaved than those who are driven by the prospect of a reward But here's the kicker Rewards not only are relatively ineffective as motivators but also can kill intrinsic motivation pregnant co-host Deborah Norville is pregnant and her baby is due in March she told viewers Tuesday morning Norville 32 joined the show last summer in a series of changes that led to the departure of co-host Jane Pauley in December She is married to Swedish businessman Karl Wellner Norville say how long she planned to continue working or how much time she might take away from the show after her child is bom a daddy dad John Goodman has become a first-time father Molly Evangeline Goodman tipped the scales at 8 pounds 1 1 ounces Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles The 37-year-old Goodman seen in and new mom Annabeth 22 tied the knot last October First-class blues New Kid on the Block Donnie Wahlberg may face charges following a fracas on a Delta flight Sunday from Salt Lake City to Atlanta According to the police report a fight ensued over a seat in coach where the first-class ticketed star had been slumming it to chat with members of his entourage The 20-year-old teen idol allegedly poked a man in the eye the guy in turn kicked Wahlberg in the stomach No comment from the fab flier but the other passenger New Yorker Benjamin Dattner says: no matter how famous should be above the law This guy was an Odd notes about people in positions of power: In an admiring essay in Spin magazine about his friend Fidel Castro Latin American novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez cmi reveals that the Fidel Castro Cuban leader has changed limos: given up a Oldsmobile and a succession of Soviet-made Zils in favor of a Mercedes-Benz Vice President Dan favorite movie? No joke Day according to Premiere magazine What kind of underwear does President Bush wear? White briefs GQ says Compiled from The Star's press services by Jim Hopwood See MWARDt F-8 Col 1 ferries are gone but not forgotten JAMES FISHER INSIDE Illinois Tough guys with guns One car ahead the truck loaded with whiskey and one car behind with more guns in it Those folks never Technically things (nut were much like cjtt 3ii been 1 00 years be fore The fog would rise on the river and the ferry captain would time his crossing After so many minutes blow his horn letting the echo hit the bank and bounce back And then with a skill now lost forever unerringly find the landing on the opposite shore It was something to see says Pat Pat liked what he saw And eventually he left the ferry No not for a city job Not for a coat and tie Almost as if it was in his genes he became a towboat captain on the Mississippi pushing barges up and down the river knowing the hectic pace of the locks north of St Louis the almost surreal quiet of the Minnesota part of the river He did that for 40 years retiring only this last spring And even now he says it all stemmed from the ferry here now gone and mostly forgotten But not by Pat could you forget something like that?" he asks COTTONWOOD POINT Mo not much here anymore some houses streets and a few empty old commercial buildings But then this is Pemiscot County not exactly one of those places where population is booming In fact the county has 1 3 percent fewer people than it did a decade ago No matter Even if this part of the state were booming handiwork would still be insignificant compared to the physical feature that dwarfs everything else the Mississippi River winding its way past here ever southward ever majestic Missouri 1 64 ends at the river Across the river Tennessee 20 picks up and heads east to Dyersburg no bridge here Never has been Probably never will be The big bridge is north near Caruthers-ville Mo It went in about 10 years ago connecting Interstate 1 SS with Tennessee Progress everybody said which was probably true But there was a downside The bridge meant the end of the river ferries believe Pat Flippo says here Columb Te one was at Cottonwood settled in middle Tennessee and married an Irish girl wife Kathy looks in telephone books when they travel and when she finds a Flippo she calls So far nobody in Kansas California and points in between has the foggiest idea about the name When grandfather worked on the ferry here it was oars and muscles that supplied the motive power When his father worked mules walking on a treadle turned the sidewheel Then it was gasoline engines then diesel The ferry was something that was just here It had a life of its own And in the Depression it sustained the Flippos It was steady work for Joshua Frankin For a boy like Pat it was wonderful In season wagons loaded with watermelons would climb the grade from the ferry landing Pat and his friends would hide in the tall grass jump on the wagon and roll a few melons off Then eat themselves sick When it came time to go to work naturally Pat went to die ferry A dollar a day maybe a little more It was a good job in the 1 940s working on the bigger boats ones haul cars and trucks cattle and hogs people and their hounds was an education for a youngster like says Pat remember the bootleggers coming out of southern 1 solve the education crisis in two hours each P-2 At your aervteai A misunderstanding over shipments of recipesTs settled F-J Osar Abbyi The mother puts her kids on a leash because she loves them not because mean P-3 Pat remembers it all And despite the fact that got more than a few hairs of that color no ancient greybeard 62 yean old And in those short yean seen change from the slow measured movement of the ferry boats that made their way back and forth across the river to the frenetic pace of the can that stream across that bridge today Pat who now lives in Morrison Mo will take the old days But then he admits prejudiced The ferry here the river itself made a living for a lot of Flippos including himself generations of my people worked on the Pat says grandfather Patrick My father Joshua Frankin Me And one of my kin named The Flippos lived in Cottonwood Point Flippo? Sure an odd name Pat says Probably from some Italian who filmed in Kansas City is competing at the Venice Film Festival which opened Tuesday P-3.