Should students get paid to make good grades?

Ah - so pragmatism, which is what you and Teddy seem to be advocating, is a virtue now, in line with Objectivist principles?

As for 'holier than thou' - assignments given me in college were done by myself, nor did I look over shoulders and crib answers... if that makes me 'holier than thou', then ye ought to stuff your lack up yours and be shamed for not - for ye saying principles are fine as long as in discussions, but in the 'real world' , go hang them as ye too cowardly to deal with principles as being the practical way of living...

Post 21

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 12:31pm

Robert, you need to go back and read carefully what we wrote.

We basically said that it is fine to cheat unjust systems that bear no relationship to the real world.

Stop trying to put words into our mouths and thoughts into our heads that never came from those places.

This is not a "slippery slope" but an objective way to restore justice to oneself in ways "the system" unjustly forbids.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 1/30, 12:38pm)

Post 22

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 12:47pm

Back to the original question if anyone is still interested: "Should students get paid to make good grades?"

What's interesting about the suggestion to pay students for their performance is that it was originally proposed because students weren't motivated by anything else. So, it was thought that maybe money would motivate them. Instead of the stick of a failing grade (with all that that implies), the student is given the carrot of a monetary reward. Whatever works, right?

What's odd about the suggestion, though, is that education is considered a value that is itself worth paying for. The student (or his parents) are paying for the student's learning, not the school. The student is the beneficiary; the school, the benefactor. To suggest that the school pay the student reverses this relationship. It makes the school the beneficiary, and the student the benefactor.

Of course, to the extent that the students are forced to attend a school that is not of the parents' or student's choosing, the beneficiary becomes, in a sense, a victim -- a victim of indoctrination. Should the institution pay the student for this indoctrination? Good question. Doing so would, to some extent, compensate him for his forced attendance. If you're forced to serve in the military, don't they pay you for your tour of duty?

On the other hand, paying the student for good grades sends the message that knowledge is not a value beyond passing the next test, since what the student is being paid for is not knowledge per se, but good grades. This sends the wrong message. It tells the student that what he is studying is basically worthless, except for the immediate monetary gratification that it brings in exchange for spitting it back to the teacher.

So, no I don't think that students should be paid for good grades. It teaches them to regard knowledge as having no long-term value.

- Bill

Post 23

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 12:53pm

Let me start with examples of what is commonly meant by cheating in school: Having a crib sheet with answers to questions that might be on the test and sneaking it into class for the test, or sneaking looks at someone else's answers on a test, or plagiarizing someone else's writing to hand in as your own in a work assignment, or not taking the steps that were required in a project, but implying that you did.

Mike, giving the "expected" answer to a socialist economics professor is NOT cheating. That teacher is testing your understanding and recall of what they taught. Giving the answer they expect is reasonable and proper. It is no violation of one's integrity and the fact that it is the wrong answer in reality has nothing to do with that classroom situation.

Using a cheat sheet hidden up you sleeve would be cheating. The person that uses a cheat sheet is dishonest and engaging in fraud. They are pretending that the seriously flawed educational system has somehow relieved them of the obligation to participate honestly in the exchange of test taking in for a grade. They haven't the guts to take an open and honest stand against whatever it is they object to, and they haven't the decency to accept the lower grade (which is all they deserve without cheating), so they try to have their cake and eat it to. They get the high grade but without doing the work. How can anyone have any respect for anyone who 'earns' their values with lies?

They cheat themselves, they ruin things for the people that are honest and actually do the work. And the cheater's grades, their degrees, and their job titles acquired based upon those degrees become (depending upon how much they cheated) frauds that they would not have without the lies they made.

Cheating is presenting something as done by you, from your efforts, according to the rules given, in exchange for a grade. It is something that you would have to lie about or hide or be sneaky to accomplish.

It is a form of fraud. You create a false reality in order to gain a value that wasn't earned and wouldn't have been given if they were caught. All the explanations about useless facts, and time wasted, and costs involved in a school transfer are just cheap rationalizations. Someone's mother needed to tell them that two wrongs don't make a right.

Anyone that doesn't understand why honesty is a virtue needs to go back to Ethics 101. Anyone that thinks that Rand, or her Character's like Francisco or Ragnar would turn in work that wasn't theirs to get a higher grade has their head up their ass.

Luke's understanding of ethics is identical to the pragmatic position taken by a con man who says he is just sustaining his own life and he only cheats insurance companies who deserve to be cheated, but warns you to not get caught.
-------------

Mr. Schulz, I liked Jeff's point in post #4 - paying for grades shifts the focus to the money being the value, and that diminishes that awareness of knowledge and learning as values in themselves. But I still think I'd continue the pay for grades incentive until progress could be made on the more fundamental issues. And the fact that private parties are willing to spend their own money, says that someone is valuing achievement in school. As to this nonsense about cheating, I expect that you will have a better understanding of this than Luke or Dean have shown (try to imagine Roark cheating, like maybe claiming credit for someone else's work!)

Post 24

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 12:55pm

Bill wrote:

Back to the original question if anyone is still interested: "Should students get paid to make good grades?"

I don't think that students should be paid for good grades. It teaches them to regard knowledge as having no long-term value.

Oh, uh, yeah, I guess we hijacked this thread, so let me just say that I agree with Bill's statement for the reasons he gives.

SW wrote:

Anyone that doesn't understand why honesty is a virtue needs to go back to Ethics 101. Anyone that thinks that Rand, or her characters like Francisco or Ragnar would turn in work that wasn't theirs to get a higher grade has their head up their ass.

Luke's understanding of ethics is identical to the pragmatic position taken by a con man who says he is just sustaining his own life and he only cheats insurance companies who deserve to be cheated, but warns you to not get caught.

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree about the meanings of key terms here. Ragnar "cheated the system" by sinking ships and recovering "legally taxed" loot to return to the producers. Was that "pragmatic" or "principled"?

Any undertaking has three sides of the "iron triangle" of project management:

1. Cost
2. Quality
3. Schedule

The immutable law of project management says you can pick only two of the three to control and must forfeit control of the third.

I can recount numerous instances of time crunches at undergraduate engineering school where I had to cut corners. For instance, in 1988 I had to complete a Fortran program that simply would not work no matter how much debugging I did, so I finally just submitted the hard copy of the code along with the output it was supposed to have hand typed in my word processor. The grader did not notice so I passed.

"Pragmatic" or "principled"?

Let's get something clear here: That program mattered for very little except that it stood in my way of pressing forward and graduating. If lives were on the line, of course I would have acted differently.

If you think I am going to fall on the sword, you're nuts. Ethics serve me. I do not serve ethics. That is the principle. One must judge carefully what matters most and then act accordingly. Morality is practical. If it's not practical, it's not moral.

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 1/30, 3:26pm)

Post 25

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 1:36pm

Jeff, I agree with what you said about the student's pooling resources when the assignment called for individual efforts (post #16). It is cheating because it is getting a grade based upon individual effort, while violating the understood conditions. Honesty would be taking a lower grade from not doing as much work, but doing it as assigned, or by paying the price in time and effort to do all the work and doing it individually. If someone says that involves a holier than thou attitude they are correct if they mean not being a cheat. Being opposed to the fraud of seeking a value (a higher grade) achieved using a lie that one did work that in fact others did, has nothing whatsoever to do with floating abstractions.

I disagreed with your statement in post #10 where you said, "First you learn to give the "answer" that is expected on a test, then years later you end up voting for "BO" in a presidential election because it is the overwhelming expectation of your friends and neighbors because you long ago learned that to "get along", you must play by the other guy's rules." A test measures your understanding of what you have been taught in the class. Your integrity does not require that you 'teach' the professor the errors in what he taught. Your answers are not your beliefs on the subject, but rather your understanding of what is expected as an answer to that question by that professor on that test. Every question on a test has the implied phrase tacked on to its end, "...according to what you've been taught in this class." Who is the greatest economist? Marx (according to what was taught by that professor).

If someone had even a fleeting doubt as to the integrity of the practice of giving the expected answer they could simply write a disclaimer at the bottom of the test, "The answers given on this test are only intended to reflect the material as taught in this course, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the test taker."

Post 26

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 2:05pm

Luke writes:

"Ethics serve me. I do not serve ethics."

That made me realize something important. For some, ethics is a thing, a codified body of thought, that resides outside. The awareness of it is something that is used as a tool to achieve a better life. On the other hand, there are those of us, myself included, that see our ethics as an integral part of ourselves. It is an element of our identity. It is not a tool to be wielded as needed, but an omnipresent aspect of our being. For those who treat it in this manner, we neither serve, nor are served by our ethics. It just is an existential aspect of the totality that makes us who we are. That's not to say that it is not something that can be examined and changed over the course of time, but I believe that this is still a significant distinction that goes a long way to understanding why there is such a wide variance in attitudes towards the various issues that are raised in these ethical discussions.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 27

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 2:38pm

Steve:

Regarding the sub-discussion about answering test questions as a way of registering whether you have learned the course material, if you were in a science course and were taught something patently incorrect, such as water freezes at 4 degrees C, I would argue against this point in class and I would not provide this incorrect answer on a test if asked. I'm guessing that, in matters of fact, neither would you. I would uphold the integrity of my knowledge over knowingly giving a wrong answer in order to obtain a better grade, and I would do so because I value my integrity higher than I do the grade. Now, if I were being taught Marxism (god forbid), I would have no problem regurgitating any number of facts regarding Marx's theories. However, when asked for an opinion as you proposed with the question "Who is the greatest economist?", I would never answer Marx, regardless of the consequences to my grade, and for the same reason given above. Now, if I were asked, "Who does the professor think is the greatest economist?", then I would not hesitate to respond Marx.

This of course is a simple distinction, but I am convinced that much of education is an attempt to smuggle opinion in and have it accepted as fact by the students. If this is successful, then by adulthood, a person may be well trained to accept opinion as fact. My reference to the election of BO is based upon this observation that many people were unable to distinguish the opinion of their friends and neighbors or those of the news media from fact, and so BO was elected on image rather than on substance.

Another aspect of this discussion may revolve around an unstated difference in how we see education. I personally see it as primarily a laboratory where a student should be taught how to discover and integrate knowledge by learning how to see and interact with the world and then think critically about those observations. Only secondarily do I see it as a means to acquiring raw facts on various subjects. I realize that this flies in contradiction to the way most education is actually structured, but it highlights why I'm much more focused on maintaining and developing one's ethical and intellectual integrity rather than worrying so much about right answers to factual questions.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 28

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 2:49pm

I was at work so I'm coming into this one very late in the game. I'll only comment on an early thought that was raised. Someone indicated that paying students to apply themselves somehow cheapened the learning process. Essentially that students should apply themselves "for love of the game" or for the feeling of independence and accomplishment felt. Wouldn't a pay for grades program mirror reality? Doesn't nature "pay" a person for applying themselves? Not to mention that such obvious "carrot" based incentives might be the only incentive they can possibly conceptualize after being systematically crippled mentally and emotionally by poor parenting and other factors. Yes, a metaphorical "el dorado" lies for them just over the next hill, and any sane person would want to discover and enjoy its riches. But how do you motivate someone who has been taught the hill is insurmountable, there's nothing on the other side anyway, and even if their was they are too weak to accomplish it? Maybe a trail of "bling" is the best way, if thats all they value at their current state.
(Edited by Ryan Keith Roper on 1/30, 2:51pm)

Post 29

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 3:48pm

I wrote:

Ethics serve me. I do not serve ethics.

Jeff wrote:

That made me realize something important. For some, ethics is a thing, a codified body of thought, that resides outside. The awareness of it is something that is used as a tool to achieve a better life. On the other hand, there are those of us, myself included, that see our ethics as an integral part of ourselves. It is an element of our identity. It is not a tool to be wielded as needed, but an omnipresent aspect of our being.

Our views coincide. Let me show how.

My heart serves me. I do not serve my heart.
My brain serves me. I do not serve my brain.
My skin serves me. I do not serve my skin.

You get the idea.

Now with that said, clearly I cannot abuse my organs with impunity. I still need to take care of them so they serve my overall well being. Likewise, I want to avoid making myself into the slave of any particular body part. (Some sexual hedonists come to mind here.)

The same holds true of ethics. I nurture them so they serve my overall well being. I want to avoid making myself into their slave.

Post 30

Friday, January 30, 2009 - 3:59pm

Ryan:

Rather than threats or "trails of bling" as inducements to apply oneself and learn, I would suggest that educators should demonstrate the value of learning by showing the opportunities that result from these activities. There are endless examples of how working hard has resulted in benefits for people all across the globe and the same is true for increasing one's knowledge. All that is required is a rigorous application of the principle of cause and effect. At root, this is what is missing from education. Outside of the sciences, I honestly cannot remember a single example where my studies were shown to have any relevancy to life. This is why I was a poor English, history and language student. In grade school, I did not understand how this information was to benefit me, so I was not motivated to study these subjects. In the case of science and math, I immediately saw the connection to the world and excelled. Later, as an adult, when I came to realize that English and history were, in fact, important subjects, I paid much greater attention and worked to increase my understanding and skill in these areas. (Not so much in learning a foreign language! :-))

As an application of the concept of cause and effect, it would be beneficial to instruct children to see how their future is their responsibility and is a direct consequence of their present actions. It would teach them something about delayed gratification as a form of "savings", where thay were banking their efforts today for a greater yield in the future. This is another message that would be undercut by the act of paying for grades.

This is really an application of the old adage that it is better to teach a man to fish than give him a fish. If you can excite children about learning, then you achieve a life-long result. The way I see it, cash inducements to study will, in general, not translate into a love for learning. To love learning, you have to see the inherent benefit in the process itself.

You bring up the cases of children who have been physically, emotionally or intellectually crippled due to abusive behavior. These are special cases requiring special attention. What I am speaking of is the normal educational process applied to reasonably normal children.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 31

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 7:35pm

Either I'm jaded or you're naive, Jeff. Probably both now that I think of it. :) Those are the kind of children the current system produces for the most part. All the reasons you mentioned for learning are correct, and SHOULD be instilled in children. This is a program that is a last hope to reach kids that didn't get that for whatever reason. If you're looking at this from the self interest perspective, educated people generally add some value to people's lives. If these kids haven't been nurtured to properly look to their own self interest regarding education, what's wrong with paying them to perform in terms they have been taught, which is in my own self interest? Sure, it would be great if the small steps paying for grades motivates awakened a desire for learning in them, and it probably will in a lot, but in the end, it would be worth it just to turn the future non-educated criminal into even a marginally educated producer.

Post 32

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 9:12pm

Ryan:

It is true that my comments were directed at education in general and I didn't take this discussion to be regarding a program of "last resort". However, I still do not think paying kids to get educated is a proper thing to do. What I really believe is that education should not be compulsory. If your parents cannot influence you to stay in school; if teachers and others in society cannot convince you that education is in your best interest; if the peer pressure of most of your friends and acquaintances attending classes are not an inducement; if observation of the world around you does not impress upon you the importance of an education, then by all means, whatever your age, please do not attend school, because you are simply going to be a disruption to the others who value their education, and you are not going to get anything from the experience. Apply yourself in other ways or waste away your time until you do come to a point in your life where you decide for yourself that education is important. Only then will you be ready to avail yourself of what the system has to offer.

I believe that a good percentage of the 12+ years we spend in grade school is a total waste and that a motivated kid in a proper educational environment could gain the reasoning skills and the required exposure to the requisite body of facts in much less time. I think our educational system would be much superior to the baby-sitting job it does today, if the focus was strictly on education and the students were there voluntarily. We all mature at different rates. Some of us are ready for school at age 5, while others should wait a few more years before starting. Some students loose interest and should take some time off in the middle. Maybe a dose of the real world would shock them back to a renewed appreciation for the future promise that a better education would hold. And maybe there are a few kids that would do better studying on their own. I took piano lessons for many many years and hated it, having to play the scales, and digest the John Thompson workbook pablum. The day I quit, I went to the music store and bought some sheet music of popular songs, took them home and began practicing. And I really practiced for the first time because I was doing something that I liked for a change. Later I got a book of Beethoven Piano Sonatas and began to tackle them. I'm no great pianist, but I did teach myself to read and play at a much higher level than when I stopped taking lessons and found a renewed love of music in the process which carried forward throughout my life.

Lots of people treat kids as though they were as dumb as a bunch of rocks. One of the writer Orson Scott Card's great observations was to see that small children were actually a lot more alert, more receptive to ideas and experiences, and thinking much more critically than many adults credit them for. I'll put my trust in the self-interest of most kids in general before I'm willing to try to force or bribe them to do anything. Children deserve a lot more respect and freedom of choice than they are currently accorded. The adults who want to resort to bribing kids as a last resort to attempt to get them educated are very likely the same people responsible for turning them off to the joys of life and knowledge in the first place.

Ryan, I'm really not arguing with you. I understand your motivation for considering this idea and agree with you that an educated populace is much better than a non-educated one. However, I feel very strongly that the motivation for anything, whether it be the acquisition of knowledge or the development of a skill like playing a musical instrument, must rest upon some genuine appreciation and inherent motivation for the task itself and will never be successfully achieved through an indirect bribe. I willing to bet that if a serious study were done for a pay-for-grades program, the measurable results would be extremely disappointing.

I hope this makes some sense, even if you do not fully agree with my position, and I'm enjoying having this discussion.

Regards,
--
Jeff

(Edited by C. Jeffery Small on 2/03, 9:15pm)

Post 33

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 9:24pm

�the old adage that it is better to teach a man to fish than give him a fish. If you can excite children about learning, then you achieve a life-long result. The way I see it, cash inducements to study will, in general, not translate into a love for learning. To love learning, you have to see the inherent benefit in the process itself.� [Jeff]

Interesting thread. I find myself agreeing with Jeff and Ryan. I see the point of view of each. I wanted to comment on what came to mind reading Jeff�s words quoted above.

Adding to the last sentence, I would ask, �and how shall we get them to see the inherent benefit in the process itself?�

I have two girls, approx. 6.85 and 4.37 years. I want them to �see the inherent benefit� of study and work. It�s hard. You can talk about it, but it�s all �blah, blah, blah� at their level. I can drive by a fine home and comment on the advanced degrees that must have gone into it, comparing it to crappy homes and what a blast high school must have been for the inhabitants, but it won�t get through.

Some people begin an allowance as young as mine. I pay them to work. There�s no pressure. They can collect all the wastebaskets from the house and deliver them to me at the back door for a dollar, or not. No controversy. Clearing the dinner table is worth a dollar. Sometimes they don�t choose to lift a finger for weeks.

I�ll pick them up from school and hear this:
�Take us to The Dollar Tree.�

�What for? Neither of you has a whole dollar.� (Every item is priced at $1.)

�Groan, moan, please, please.�

�Let�s go home and do something worth a dollar, or two such things. Tomorrow maybe you can go to the dollar store.�

They learned that it really works! Dad does as told; he stops at the dollar store and keeps his mouth shut while we buy whatever we want with our dollars, IF WE HAVE SOME.

As they grow, jobs that were challenging at 3 or 4 yrs become expected as part of their contribution to household management and new tasks appropriate to their age become payable. And on it will evolve.

I can see no better way to establish in them a personally felt connection between effort and pleasure of independence, even as I appreciate the risk of instilling a concrete-bound mentality that doesn�t get off the couch without a Benjamin being waved around.

Ryan is right that so many have never experienced this connection, even by high school.

When his professors told Peikoff that Objectivism was impractical, he enjoyed informing them how much the Nathaniel Branden Institute paid him to lecture.

Post 34

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 9:36pm

The decision should rest with the parents. An outside source should not be able to give money to the children without the parents' approval. It is both dangerous and an abrogation of the parents' right to motivate the children as they see fit. I am skeptical of the enterprise, (we don't pay people to breath or to eat, and if school is a "job" they why not quit and get a real one?) but if you want to give your money to the children's parents, feel free.

Post 35

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 9:48pm

The ARI gives tens of thousands of $ each year to high schoolers just for writing good essays about The Fountainhead. It�s not for books or tuition, ARI is very explicit: It is cash. For whatever the winners want to spend it on.

Post 36

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 9:59pm

That's a prize for an extra-curricular activity.

Post 37

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 10:05pm

So what?

It�d be nice as part of the curriculum, too, right?

Post 38

Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - 11:43pm

Jeff,

In post 30 you write: �You [Ryan] bring up the cases of children who have been physically, emotionally or intellectually crippled due to abusive behavior. These are special cases requiring special attention. What I am speaking of is the normal educational process applied to reasonably normal children.�

Jacob�s post that started the thread is about Chicago high schools. So I assume we are in fact talking about severely troubled educational situations. By the way, hi Jacob. Nice topic and welcome.

Jeff and Jacob, what do you think of the Fountainhead Essay Contest? I believe the annual 1st place still gets like $15 or $25 thousand, with a dozen more getting $1,000, or something along those general lines.

The contest exposes thousands of high school students to The Fountainhead and Ayn Rand.

If paying inner-city students to excel in math and science is misguided for bypassing a genuine love of learning, then is ARI�s contest also a bad idea? Should the ARI discontinue it declaring that youthful exposure to Rand �must rest upon some genuine appreciation and inherent motivation for the task itself and will never be successfully achieved through an indirect bribe�?

Post 39

Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - 2:46am