Posted by
Juwar74 on Monday, August 11, 2008 7:51:45 PM
A few cities are implementing a pilot program that rewards students
with cash if they get good grades or good scores on standardized tests.
If I wasn't a such a gentlemen, I'd tell the directors of such programs
to go climb a tree.
Paying children for good grades was an idea
many schools had when I was a kid back in the 80's, and now the idea is
coming up again. I guess life does repeat itself. And since its an
issue that is repeating itself, then it appears that any issue that
repeats itself was probably not a good idea to begin with. I mean if it
had worked then, why isn't it around today. Why hadn't our local
governments mandated paying students to get good grades?
In a
PBS documentary, a child in the pilot program was asked about how she
changed when she knew she would get money. The child said, "It made me
want to do my work. I studied harder, and when I studied harder, I did
good."
The problem I had with the whole set up was why in the
hell was he getting a child's opinion? They don't know anything. You
could have given him ice cream and cake instead of money, and the child
would have answered the same way.
The programs are nothing more than a bribery scheme. And in the long term, children don't react positively to bribery.
Children
are impressionable, and its sad that adults are relaying the message
that there will be a monetary reward for any work that you do. These
kids will grow up attaching money to everything. I can just imagine
years later when the kid is 19, and you ask him, "Say, you want to go
do some community clean-up?" And he'll say, "How much they paying?"
But
one strange thing that this pilot program revealed was that low test
scores are independent of whether a teacher is good or not. If a school
district, or misguided conservative and liberal advocacy groups were to
accuse failing schools on rotten teachers, the teachers could just say,
"Well, if you paid the students enough, we wouldn't be going through
this problem, now would we?" And the slippery slope begins.
I,
myself, have always known that a student's low test scores generally
had nothing to do with the teacher. It had more to do with the
student's poor study habits, the belief that ALL knowledge comes from
the teacher, straight up laziness and distorted values. Does paying
someone money instantly change these things? I think not.
I made
straight A's in middle school. My father didn't give me a dime for my
school work. He congratulated me, but he figured that was what I was
supposed to do. Did that stop me? No.
One argument from
guilt-ridden parents to justify paying their child for good grades is
that doing schoolwork is the child's job, and they should be
compensated just like any other job. The problem I have is with the
word "job." It is not a job to go to school to learn how to read, write
and critically think. In household dynamics, it is a child's "role" as
part of the family to do well in school. Roles are not jobs. Roles are
things you expect each member of the house to do without incentive. It
is a parent's role to feed, clothe and shelter children. It is the
children's role to clean up once and awhile, cut the grass if needed,
study, make good grades in school, and do whatever is asked of them to
keep a functioning family, and that's all there is to it.
I will
never pay my children for getting good grades in school, but I will
have no trouble punishing them if they come home with C's, D's and F's.
I
think American parents today have lost their minds when it comes to
common sense in child rearing, which is why I think in our global
economy, American children will continuously be left behind.