Tapsearch Com EditorShould we pay for good grades?
August 25th 2008 15:46
Link: www.ethicsbox.com
Education- Hippocratic dictum - " to help or- at least do no harm"
In previous articles, I have mentioned the voids I have felt and observed in education since working in several factories while going to college. In many cases I found much more common sense thinking in the factories rather than in the classrooms. The bridge between the factory floors and the college class room seemed to never be crossed and I always wondered why.
At the factory, we marveled at a fellow worker who could spot weld and produce work like no other person could. He had to take constant breaks so that he would not mess up the average of what all the other workers could produce. This remains a question of our times in both the work world and the classroom. Where does common sense thinking and education meet on the bridge of life.
Tom Paliama, below fills part of this void with his commentary relating to students being paid for good grades. It seems he comes from a similar background of common sense thinking.
Ray Tapajna, The Rationale Com
by Tom Palaima, University of Texas Professor.
Knowledge is its own reward ( Re. student getting paid for good grades )
Thomas G. Palaima,
Austin American-Statesman Monday, August 25, 2008
At a recent international conference on ancient
medicine at the University of Texas organized by
my colleague Lesley Dean-Jones, scholars
discussed whether ancient Greek medical practice
could be considered a "tekhnę." The words
"technical" and "technique" come from "tekhnę,"
which means something like a "learned
professional discipline."
As Dean-Jones explains, the ancient Greeks
applied two main criteria. To be a "tekhnę," an
area of expertise should be fairly consistently
successful and be generally teachable.
Greek thinkers advanced arguments against the
idea that "paideia" (education) was a "tekhnę."
If it were, they reasoned, its practitioners
would know, and be able to predict, results. So
they would, first, agree on what to do, and,
second, be correct in the advice they gave.
To be considered true experts, modern educational
theorists and reformers should define what kind
of success they intend to achieve and adopt
policies that will have a fair measure of
success. They should follow the Hippocratic
dictum "to help or at least to do no harm."
A prevailing assumption nowadays is that students
are consumers who control an educational
marketplace. Education is a commodity with
economic goals and incentives. This view drives
the 2006 report commissioned by U.S. Secretary of
Education Margaret Spellings and shaped by
Charles Miller, a career investment manager and
for 20 years a leading proponent of
accountability and outcomes-oriented education.
Ironically, the downward trends in American
education the report identifies occurred during
the 20-year period when standardized testing and
"teaching to the test" took over.
This way of thinking about education has led to
the experiment in the public schools of
Coshocton, Ohio, where random third- to
eighth-graders are being paid $20 to $100 for
getting passing grades. These incentives are
bankrolled by a local businessman. This fall,
Exxon Mobil Corp. will pay students in six states
$100 if they pass Advanced Placement tests.
Does this give you the creeps, too? Think back to
your experience in education. Did your memorable
teachers inspire you with payoffs? Do you prize
and value facts drilled into you ahead of rote
knowledge tests?
I come from a background where money and
education were scarce commodities. My paternal
grandparents couldn't read or write. Still, in my
24 years of formal education, beginning in 1956,
no teacher even mentioned financial rewards. My
best teachers inspired us by their passions for
their subjects, by encouraging us to think and
share our thoughts, by respecting and empowering
us. They modeled love of learning for its own
sake and stressed what we could do for society.
It is no surprise that the expert monitoring the
Coshocton experiment is an economist who reasons
that since "so much of society is now based on
incentives" that there is no harm in using 8- to
14-year-olds as guinea pigs. Why have teachers,
parents and school administrators handed their
children's educational futures over to
economists, fund managers and TAKS-test
ideologues?
Is it good for our society that citizens learn
not to strive for knowledge, or do anything,
unless they get cash rewards? The payments in
Coshocton have not improved reading, social
studies or science scores, only those in math.
I asked Jim Parker, language arts teacher and
middle school coordinator at St. Francis School
in Austin, what he thought. He told me that the
Coshocton experiment left him with a bad taste.
He pointed me to Jonathan C. Erwin's book, "The
Classroom of Choice," where we learn: "When a
student hears, 'If you do this, then you'll get
that,' the message to the learner is, 'There must
be something wrong with this if you have to give
me that to get me to do it.' '' Erwin also cites
many studies that demonstrated that motivation by
external incentives fails.
The "tekhnę" of teaching is no less mysterious
now than it was for the Greeks. But when the
first great teacher in Western culture, Socrates,
was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens, it
was not with cash incentives. He taught them to
use their minds, something people keen on
controlling power in all periods of history have
considered dangerous.
Palaima (tpalaima@sbcglobal.net) is a professor
of classics at the University of Texas.
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