Should Kids Be Bribed To Do Well In School? 706
theodp writes "Harvard economist Roland Fryer Jr. did something education researchers almost never do: he ran a randomized experiment in hundreds of classrooms in Chicago, Dallas, Washington, and New York to help answer a controversial question: Should Kids Be Bribed to Do Well in School? He used mostly private money to pay 18,000 kids a total of $6.3 million and brought in a team of researchers to help him analyze the effects. He got death threats, but he carried on. His findings? If incentives are designed wisely, it appears, payments can indeed boost kids' performance as much as or more than many other reforms you've heard about before — and for a fraction of the cost."
Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it turns out to be a better use of resources and we turn out students who do better in school then it can't be all bad.
No (Score:3, Insightful)
What does that teach them? Don't do anything regardless of what it is unless you're "bribed".
That said I know I will get flamed for saying that, but I think it instills an attitude of don't anything unless you get paid, loses touch with what education is and should be.
Re:a better question (Score:2, Insightful)
So the children of rich parents should do better in school than those of poor parents? Purely because they have more money?
I'm not advocating one way or another, but it's the first question that popped in to my mind when I read your post.
A few sides to this. (Score:3, Insightful)
(+) "If it works, then why not?"
(+) "It's capitalism, comrade!"
(-) "But it's against our ideals, people should learn for the sake of learning!"
Frankly, I'm up for anything which improves the effectiveness of our education system at this point as long as it doesn't constitute an outright human rights violation. The system is broken. If you can prove that X provides significant gains, then we should at least look into it.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
It teaches them the way the real world works. Do adults do their jobs because "they are supposed to" or "out of the kindness of their own hearts." The real world pays you for the work you perform, why preclude children from that, just because we can.
If it works and it is more cost effective then other types of reform, then more power to them.
It does work, but you have to keep paying them. (Score:1, Insightful)
The experiments so far indicate that paying students for results improves only the results paid for. Pay for attendance, you get attendance. Pay for grades on quizzes, you get grades on quizzes. End of year scores don't improve much, if at all. And when the money stops, so does the improvement.
That's useful info.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a lot easier for a rich kid to be motivated to do well because he knows he's gonna be able to go on that jetski trip or get that new Ipad as a reward for doing well in school. The concept would allow poor kids to immediately see tangible results of their hard work, instead of struggling in squalor for up to 12 years(if they don't say "fuck it" and become drug dealers instead). That the rich may become richer is no concern to the kid who's just glad to have a netbook or enough money to buy a clunker car.
As an older college student, I know that not everybody has the luxury of being able to learn for fun.
-- Ethanol-fueled
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you get bribed to go to work?
For most kids, education is pain, and toil, frustration, anger, boredom, and tears.
Re:a better question (Score:4, Insightful)
While I generally feel the government shouldn't be in charge of raising our kids, they ARE in charge of educating them (if your kids go to public school).
Also, unlike so many other government programs and tax breaks, this actually helps out poor families more than rich families. If little Delray can make money by studying, he's less likely to go "hang" with a bad crowd and steal money. He even has a chance to help provide himself with a better life now AND later.
"Bribe"... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
What does that teach them?
The value of their work.
That said I know I will get flamed for saying that
Stop 'baiting.
but I think it instills an attitude of don't anything unless you get paid, loses touch with what education is
What education is? Factory-job preparedness training? Repeated lessons in submitting to authority? Day-prisons for teenagers?
I'm more worried that they'll get paid for grades and that learning things is not the best way to get good grades (obeying teacher is).
Re:Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
because kids aren't adults, and school isn't optional work?
Absolutely. That's why kids don't need motivation for school work. They just do it as if by magic.
why do you think adults require motivation?
In my case, a cursory examination of human behavior has yielded a great deal of evidence to indicate that people need motivation or they don't do the work.
Re:Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids. Kids didn't ask their parents to be born. Their parents didn't ask the kids: do you want to be born and go through this? None of that happened. Kids are forced to be born, forced to do whatever the grownups tell them, forced to learn all of this nonsense, forced to become 'productive members of society' and by the society they are often forced to have their own offspring just so that there will be the next generation of 'productive members of society' ready to pay for the mistakes of the former ones.
Sure kids need motivation to go to school. There has to be some motivation and if all other motivations fail, money just may be the last resort.
Re:a better question (Score:4, Insightful)
Our current education system is failing. Its very evident by looking at any national ranking charts that compare countries. We need to do something before things crash. And believe me, when it crashes it will affect YOU. Crime, the economy, poverty, health care. What wouldn't be fair would be you reaping the benefits of education without paying for it. Public education (yes, even the crappy system we have now) helps EVERYONE, those without children, those with children in private school, the elderly who's children have already finished school, EVERYONE.
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF are you talking about? It doesn't create any kind of entitlement. it teaches them that if they want something (like money) they work (study) for it.
It's not like we give them the money if they fail! If anything it teaches the reverse of entitlement.
Re:Why Not? (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids generally have food and a place to live without worrying about it -- they expect it. Kids also generally have a pretty short term outlook. Remember when you felt like summer vacation would last forever or the school year would never end? At 14, it's hard to think realistically about what one's life will be like at 35. So you give short term motivators to kids, they do well, and life at 35 is all that much easier because somewhere along the way, they picked up long-term thinking skills without being hampered by blowing off homework and playing video games.
However, as an intentionally child-free taxpayer, I really do hate paying for other people's sprogs.
Re:No (Score:1, Insightful)
I think teaching that you will be paid for your efforts, or should be at least, is a lesson already taught by society except that kids have to hope that their payment comes in college grants/scholarships/etc....and the criteria for those is based on almost nebulous things such as "After school participation".
If kids could learn and bank up money to apply to college, they wouldn't be at the mercy of a board somewhere who decides if their grades are high enough, if their after school activities were suitable, and all the other criteria they judge on that never comes to light which I suspect "ability for parents to pay" is one.
There's nothing quite as frustrating to spend all your time in school, then go home and spend it on hours of homework and study... put tremendous amounts of effort into it and when college time rolls around you get no scholarships because you weren't one of the top 3 in your class. And your parents can't afford to pay for your tuition or books, and all the money you made working after school jobs and summer jobs went into a car so you could commute to and from the local college. While the kids whose parents paid for a brand new car, covered their kids insurance, and basically took all the extra stress of after school work and summer jobs that paid........and could pay for their college if they didn't get the scholarships either. I say what's wrong with kids earning money to put toward college or other educational efforts especially if it drives them to learn in the process?
The system as it is now just sucks.
Re:Part of me wants to agree with you, but... (Score:1, Insightful)
Well I don't get up every morning and say
"Right, unless somebody's going to pay me, I'm not having breakfast!"
Do you?
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
At least 11 successful final report cards. 10 final report cards and you'll always be leasing the car, 9 or less and you wont be able to lease one. 15 successful final report cards and you can afford a house + car. 18+ final report cards and you'll get a very nice house a bmw and people call you Dr.
Re:a better question (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a job; you get paid if you accomplish what you're told to do. You don't get grounded if you fail to perform, you just stop getting money.
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Totally agree. Perhaps part of the reason people are so ticked off about this, is because they've come to believe the lies that effort is uber-important. In real life, effort is important only insofar as it enables one to achieve results. Effort, on its own and by itself, is worthless -- it's like having fuel but no engine in which to burn it and convert the fuel to work.
To put this in a bad car analogy -- given two mechanics, one who tries earnestly to do a good job but is actually terrible and who could barely change a tire correctly, and another who sleepwalks through his day but solves problems effortlessy and quickly, most people would chose the second guy(*) because when all is said and done, it is the end result that actually matters.
(*) Assuming the second guy has just enough motivation to drag his butt out of bed and show up at work.
Can backfire in the long term... (Score:5, Insightful)
Studies show that adding pay to a task decreases the internal perceived motivation for that same task. Actors conclud, subconsciously, that money is why they did it. Hence they are less likely in the future to do it unless they are paid again. Perilous to do this with the pursuit of knowledge.
Of course in a typical public school, there are already serious problems with busywork versus genuine pursuit of understanding. In that context, payment might be the right thing to do, because as others have noted, payment is indeed what humans expect in exchange for busy work.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
f their parents aren't expected to be capable of motivating their children, then why should society be expected to be capable of doing it?
i don't want to pay children to do what they are expected to do, when they aren't penalized in the same form for not doing it.
Move away from the emotional aspects of it and consider it this way:
Let's start with the premise that you want to see our schools do a better job educating our kids.
You have proposal A, with a cost of X and an effectiveness of Y .7Y
You have proposal B, with a cost of 2X and an effectiveness of
So long as it's not something inappropriate for children, is there any reason not to pick proposal A?
Re:a better question (Score:4, Insightful)
...do you understand how much money can be made stealing, or the more lucrative drug dealing?
Yes, do you? Read the chapter of Freakonomics entitled "Why Do Drug Dealers Live With their Parents". It has some good numbers to show making more than minimum wage working as a crack dealer is sort of like playing basketball for a living... that is to say, you can make a lot of money, but any individual almost certainly won't.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm more worried that they'll get paid for grades and that learning things is not the best way to get good grades (obeying teacher is).
Absolutely dead on... Learning things long ago stopped being the point of public education. The government (at all levels) wants good stats (read, stndardized test scores). Even the good teachers are stuck with the decision of either teaching for the tests, keeping their job, and hoping to run across the occasional kid they can actually teach to, or not teaching to the test and losing their job and thus the chance to help ANY kids...
And the kids.. they learned that grades don't have squat to do with knowledge or learning. They are all about the test.
Re:a better question (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't choose your parents, that's why civillised countries provide free education for children, free (or subsidised) medical care and a small amount of money for food and clothes if the families are very poor.
Parents have a great responsibility to their children, but as we all know, many irresponsible and incapable people have children.
Re:a better question (Score:5, Insightful)
A job is better than prison which is the closest analog to the current school system.
Students are expected to work extremely hard for an extremely long time with no short term payoff(indeed with short term penalties) and the only possible payoff being far enough off that the time could be measured in significant fractions of their entire lifespan so far.
Some kids manage this.
Many don't and that's a failing of the system and not just the individual.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
the free availability should be motivation enough. it was for me.
I think the projection of self onto the societal-level of decision making gives us policy that only works for a few people. This is especially the case when you apply yourself as (presumably) an adult as a decent model for today's children. Their situation is invariably different from yours and using your own childhood as a model for a wide swath of today's youth is probably not going to match up to the needs and expectations of today.
Re:Behaviorism run amok (Score:2, Insightful)
It isn't hard, it just costs money (which apparently they're willing to throw at this problem anyway, so...), which most schools don't have enough of. On top of that, traditional thinking in education also keeps good ideas down. I've seen effective teaching methods used in various places, usually only by single teachers, or by specialty schools that cost more or aren't publicly funded. And these techniques are widely dispersed, since education is typically governed on the local level, so they see little propagation. If we could gather up these techniques, consolidate them, pay to put them into all schools and universities (for training teachers to use them), then you'd see a world of difference in how well kids did in school (and life). Intrinsic motivators can be fostered if done right, but our whole societal paradigm revolves around extrinsic rewards and punishments, so these ideas have a hard time propagating. I won't even get into the bad influence that most parents have on this effect, but that can be at least partly countered by proper education, which would only increase over generations.
And how about the curriculum itself? How many times have I seen on /. that many people here agree that teaching things like logic and philosophy would be beneficial? I'd add to that communication skills (how many problems in our society begin with misunderstandings and people not being clear, or not listening properly?), and emotional strategies like anger and stress management. There are good ideas out there that can help everyone, and should be part of everyone's "basic training" growing up, but they generally only get taught in specialty classes or by therapists long after problems develop.
You can also look at it like perfectly standard problem-solving: do you find the root of the problem, and solve it there, or simply apply band-aid solutions such as this one, fixing the symptoms only and leaving the core problem in place? This is like trying to cure the measles by covering up each individual spot as they appear.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
It's easy to say "should".
They real question is what gets the best results.
Your argument seems to be based entirely on your own ego.
As the guy in TFA put it.
"Kids should learn for the love of learning,"
"But they're not. So what shall we do?"
Re:a better question (Score:2, Insightful)
"someone else provides the children with food and a home. those providers have expectations of the children. no further motivation should be expected, let alone required."
You've just described slavery. The master provides food and a home to his slaves, and that provider has expectation of the slaves. No further motivation should be expected, let alone required.
Society has moved away from the slavery-model for our financial system. Perhaps we should move away from the slavery-model for our educational system as well.
Re:a better question (Score:5, Insightful)
it was for me.
And thus the entire problem with trying to inject rational and evidence based thinking into the system is summed up perfectly.
The people who do well are the people who succeed in the current system.
The people people who succeeded in the current system no matter how poor the current system is believe that only they and people like them ever *should* succeed or do well.
and so we see clouds of vitriol like the above.
Re:a better question (Score:5, Insightful)
what the hell?
This program is an evidence based experiment.
That's not ignorance.
Ignorance is throwing round rhetoric about how you think the world should and shouldn't be based on nothing but your own self importance.
Re:a better question (Score:4, Insightful)
How does that describe slavery any more than most jobs?
"Someone else provides the workers money (which buys the food and home). Those providers have expectations of the workers. No further motivations should be expected let alone required."
Re:a better question (Score:2, Insightful)
You are right (except for the dangerous part). perhaps someone should do a study on it. Hey wait, that's what started your whole rant in the first place.
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
It's an entitlement. Because you are not supposed to get payed for eduction: education is a service that is provided to you!
Later in life they'll have to pay to get a college degree, a PhD, and so on.
What you should be teaching your son is that if they don't finish school they won't be able to get a job.
On the other hand, it will be a shock when they find out that the only real way of getting money is doing an effort for other people and not for themselves.
If you want to teach your kid the value of work that's great. But do it with actual work (mawing the lawn, doing the dishes) and not with "make believe work".
Re:a better question (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I'm a proud Ahmurkin
Re:a better question (Score:5, Insightful)
the long term effects of paying children money for marks in school is not clear, and in many ways seemingly dangerous.
The compensation is deferred, but we already do pay students to do well in school. I had a full ride plus in college; that was a direct result of doing well in high school. I am a physician now, and the very good income I make is only available to people who did very well in school. "Study hard and you'll get a scholarship to college and a good job afterward" may be a lot more indirect than "Here's some cash, kid" but it pretty much only tested whether I was able to handle delayed gratification - otherwise it was very much paying me for doing well in school. This proposes to push that payment scheme down to kids who can't do decades-long delayed gratification, i.e. most of them., in order to improve their outcomes from education.
Re:Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
no.
Just any system which you suggest.
If you penalize people for things which are completely out of their control you don't achieve much.
If you'd read TFA you'd have noticed that the best results weren't from rewarding for end results but rather for activities which lead to better results like reading books.(it also happened to be exceptionally cheap)
A lovely little quote from TFA:
Then I ask her about the psychologists' argument that she should work hard for the love of learning, not for short-term rewards. "Honestly?" she asks. "Yes, honestly," I say. She looks me dead in the eye. "We're kids. Let's be realistic."
Re:Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Starvation isn't a sufficient motivator?
Only if there is a difference. If I starve whether or not the work gets done, then I'm not motivated.
Re:Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever wonder why someone will make a 30 minute call to technical support, just to ask a basic question that they could answer themselves with 5-10 minutes of research? It's because they have learned the dependency lesson. Not only does it never occur to them to take the situation into their own hands, they would resent the suggestion. That's why they immediately seek assistance instead of seeking help only as a last resort after first making a sincere effort to obtain their own answers.
I think this link [cantrip.org] would explain a great deal of what I am saying.
Re:Part of me wants to agree with you, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that's the case. Money is not an end in itself, it's a form of delayed gratification. It's not bad, but it doesn't trump all other kinds of motivation. When these other motivations apply, the money factor becomes irrelevant, and can be the source of serious mistakes in understanding.
Food, sex, etc. are stronger motivators than money for most people.
Re:Behaviorism run amok (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you know what these intrinsic motivators are?
I'll tell you:
1. Thirst.
2. Hunger.
3. Fear (of death, of pain...)
4. Sex drive.
and much much further than this is
X. Curiosity.
In most people natural curiosity does not lie within the defined boundaries of what is required from them at schools.
Most schools and most classes do not promote curiosity and most people cannot be curious about most things that are required from them at school.
How do you suggest making everyone have the same intrinsic motivators to do some insane work defined by some insane curriculum, most of which is really only directed at creating an obedient working unit and like it?
Re:a better question (Score:4, Insightful)
...so you think the world is fair?
Of course not, but it is our duty as humans to make it as fair as we can and certainly if you don't care about fairness why should we care what you think is fair with regard to your taxes? You can't bitch and moan about how you don't think said taxation is fair and expect anyone to listen if you ignore the unfair things said taxation is addressing.
Who Knew? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who knew that sufficiently motivated kids could get good grades? What a stunner. It's absolutely mind boggling.
All this study does is point out the obvious. What it doesn't do is show how to teach students how to find reasons within themselves for getting good grades. As lack of self-motivation is the real problem standing between most kids and realizing their personal potential(both grade-wise and in life) that's where the studies should focus.
I remember Algebra class in high school. It wasn't all that hard, but I hated it as no one ever told me what it was good for, and I couldn't visualize any use for it. I ended up dropping it because I would have gotten a D in it, while I pulled straight A's in Geometry with hardly any effort on my part. The difference? My interest level. My internal motivation. I loved pulling out my Geometry book and going to Geometry class. I hated pulling out my Algebra book and going to Algebra class, even though I liked the teacher.
A decade later I entered a college technical course which required algebra skills for the electrical theory it taught. I aced both math and electrical courses as I finally finally saw what algebra was used for, and became motivated as I found electrical theory fascinating.
In my late 40s I went back to school again and aced math classes related to electronics that the college said I had no business even taking with my math background. Those classes combined algebra and trig, which I'd never studied at any level in school, but yet I breezed through them with minimal effort. My total exposure to trig before those classes? A small, and I mean small, trig textbook written in the late 1800s. It was approximately 4"x6" and about.5" thick, including the hard cover that I had spent maybe 4 or 5 hours total reading, but it made sense to me
We need to study how to motivate, how to get kids to understand how the skills taught in school will affect their life after school. Once they understand those things they will apply themselves as it's in their own best interest and they will recognize it. They aren't stupid, they're just taught more about political correctness, and that the world owes them, in school these days than they are about real life, how they can succeed, and what that success will mean to them in quality of life after school.
This study shows short-term motivation works. But what we really need is to understand how to encourage long-term motivation in our kids. Teaching them that they are entitled to the government taking care of them from the cradle to the grave isn't motivational in the least. It's demotivational, if that's actually a word. It teaches them that they can get by with the least effort possible, and that's a recipe for disaster-in-the-making for our country's long-term future. Why? If our kids aren't self-motivated to succeed, our country will fail right along with them.
Re:What is a bribe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, thanks for that post. The use of the word "bribe" seems calculated to imply that paying kids for their performance in school is somehow sleazy or immoral, which is absurd given that almost everyone pushing this viewpoint expects payment for their performance at work. The idea that good grades should be their own reward sounds fine and noble, but it has no connection to reality, and most kids figure this out pretty fast.
Re:Why Not? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, as an intentionally child-free taxpayer, I really do hate paying for other people's sprogs.
View it as an investment into the future to ensure that there's doctors and nurses and taxpayers to take care of you in your retirement.
Re:a better question (Score:2, Insightful)
should these questions be left to be answered and executed in private by the parents of kids?
yes.
This is currently at "-1 Flamebait". What a failure of moderation. The question posed by this summary is "Should kids be bribed to do well in school?" The post to which I reply states an opinion that the parents should be the ones who decide whether this is the best way to raise their children. That's flamebait? Really??
An instant, dismissive attempt to censor what is obviously a valid, honest opinion only lends credibility to that opinion. So good job, mods. Your childish reaction to this tells me only one thing: that a person who is not so puerile and emotionally overreactive views this differently than you do. Anyone with some understanding who might have entertained the idea of both views being merely different but equal now knows that yours is inferior. Anyone who can't see that for themselves would have already agreed with you anyway, so you truly have wasted your time and your mod points.
As I've heard it said, you might chronologically be an adult but that doesn't mean you've grown up. If you want to try growing up a little, perhaps instead of wasting mod points you can explain why parents should not be the ones who ultimately decide these matters.
Incidentally, I have plenty of karma. Do your worst. Waste your points on me. I'd be happy with that, since you might have otherwised use them to censor someone who doesn't have plenty of karma. I'd suggest "Offtopic" but feel free to be creative.
Re:No (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:1, Insightful)
Well you are a severe miniority. Enjoy it and keep it to yourself.
Really the rest of us wish you'd shut the fuck up. Employers read crap like that and expect all their workers to be that way.
'Every job is a family, a team. You work here because you love it.' ect ect... BULLSHIT.
Most of us work because you PAY us. Want more work done? PAY US MORE!
Oooo pizza if we hit our quarterly goals? Big fucking deal... PAY US MORE!
Which is part of the reason worker productivity is in the toilet. And product quality is on the way down all across the country.
We know that doing a great job wont GET US MORE MONEY! Instead it gets us more family oriented team building bullshit we REALLY dont care about. But we smile and put up with it instead of flat out saying 'fuck you! pay us more!'
Ok. mod it down. i'm done.
Re:Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn you must have had a shitty childhood.
My kids aren't "forced" to go to school. They love it. They love learning. They take on learning tasks all by themselves, without financial incentives.
They're "productive members of society" already. They're not being forced to do anything; they enjoy life. Part of enjoying life is learning, stretching your mind and your body.
I disagree with paying kids for good grades because it incetivizes cheating, and it removes the main reason for learning: it's fun.
Think about this. Do you learn a new programming language because you are forced to? Because your boss pays you more? Or because it's fun?
Heck, if people expected to get paid for learning, then linux would not exist. It's built by people who love learning new things.
[sarcasm] OK, Now I get it - it's all an evil plot by m$ to kill linux... [/sarcasm]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why Not? (Score:4, Insightful)
However, as an intentionally child-free taxpayer, I really do hate paying for other people's sprogs.
And many of those sprogs might hate paying for your Medicaid and retirement.
Much as some intentionally-childless moan about "having to support other people's children", technically it is the other way around. By deciding not to have children, you aren't "receiving less from the government", economically you are co-investing less in future taxpayers. From a tax and social policy perspective, in the current system, it is the height of selfishness to decide to be childless and put neither the money nor the child-rearing effort into maintaining society into the future.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
Parents' belief that they know what's best for their children is usually egotism.
What's our responsibility when they're clearly wrong? (i.e. the vaccination-autism conspiracy theorists)
To protect parental rights? To protect the children themselves? To protect the rest of us?
Determine the goal before you look for a solution and you're more likely to find it.
Re:Why Not? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure if many people read TFA but an interesting result:
Schools in Dallas got the simplest scheme and the one targeting the youngest children: every time second-graders read a book and successfully completed a computerized quiz about it, they earned $2. Straightforward -- and cheap. The average earning would turn out to be about $14 (for seven books read) per year.
And in Dallas, the experiment produced the most dramatic gains of all. Paying second-graders to read books significantly boosted their reading-comprehension scores on standardized tests at the end of the year -- and those kids seemed to continue to do better the next year, even after the rewards stopped.
The cheapest program produced the best results.
One clue came out of the interviews Fryer's team conducted with students in New York City. The students were universally excited about the money, and they wanted to earn more. They just didn't seem to know how. When researchers asked them how they could raise their scores, the kids mentioned test-taking strategies like reading the questions more carefully. But they didn't talk about the substantive work that leads to learning. "No one said they were going to stay after class and talk to the teacher," Fryer says. "Not one."
We tend to assume that kids (and adults) know how to achieve success. If they don't get there, it's for lack of effort -- or talent.
doesn't really matter to me. The kids would figure it out. Negative motivation (YOU'LL FAIL!!!!) never worked for me, I just tried to do the minimum amount of work necessary. Why wouldn't I? I have friends from my same [top tier engineering school] that dumped their lives into their work and their offer letters are less than mine. They have 3.9, I have 2.8-2.9 at my school (avg is 2.9).
The interesting thing is when I was cooping (like an internship except you go back to the same company) I was dying to have more challenging work. Why? Because it was my job. All learning was self motivated. It was either "sit around and be bored" or "ask for more work and try to challenge myself and learn things". Guess which one I chose? I didn't fear losing my job for screwing up the harder stuff, nor did I get "grades"-- I just worked on it till I got it right, and then my boss was happy, and I got a paycheck, and I was happy.
The school system does not motivate. I have yet to figure out how these A+ teachers' pets motivate themselves. Meanwhile I got to play a lot more video games than my friends that studied all day. If I got paid cash for the grades [and I got to spend the cash-- IE don't make me give it all up just to keep going to school what's the point in that], I would be so much more motivated.
Re:Death Threats? (Score:3, Insightful)
What in the hell is wrong with this world when people get death threats over an issue like this?
What's wrong is that some people are too entrenched in thinking they are right.
When you are absolutely, 100%, certain that you are right, and you think someone is doing harm to children. Well, since you are absolutely right, then of course that guy is really doing harm to children.
Well then, if someone is going to harm children, and will not stop when you tell them do, sending out death threats is not such a big deal, since you are "saving the children" right?
In my opinion, the greatest evil can only be done by those who completely has no concept of right or wrong, OR those who 100% convinced they are doing such greater good than any small evil done in the process could be justified.
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny that computer geeks have no problem programming and performing other advanced mental tasks, yet inflict serious damage and neglect the health of their own body. Try using those brains to drop the weight and improve your cardio. If the Jocks can do it, no reason you can't too.
Exactly!
And if computer geeks have no problem programming and performing other advanced mental tasks, no reason jocks can't do it too!
Re:a better question (Score:3, Insightful)
Music is good for more than just entertainment. It can be used to engender in people a feeling of beauty or the sublime. It can be used to train and teach people, make them better people. It can be used for relaxation, a sleeping aid, meditation, or even an aphrodisiac. Heck, it can even be used for subliminal messaging.