I am completely against the idea of paying students for grades. So seeing this story first thing this morning in the Chicago Tribune made my already stressful morning that much more infuriating.
As anyone who has read my stuff knows (thank you, to my seven awesome readers!), I teach in a low income African American high school on the South Side of Chicago. My students are reluctant learners at best. They are several years below grade level in reading and math. Most of them (90%) receive free or reduced price lunch. Many live in public housing projects. To say they have many challenges in their lives would be an understatement.
Trying to motivate students with these challenges is one of my greatest challenges. My kids don't see the value of education. All they really seem to understand or appreciate is money. So paying them to get better grades makes the idea of learning as its own reward impossible.
And this is a problem, in my opinion. I want my students to be independent thinkers and learners. This is hard, as they have received subpar educations all their lives. But I don't think it's impossible. If I could just help them believe in the idea that education matters. Monetizing their achievements (and I use that word lightly, as grade inflation is a huge problem) further reduces the idea that learning should be its own reward.
When I went to graduate school to become a teacher, I dreamed of having these amazing rhetorical discussions about literature. I thought maybe I'd have a "Oh captain, my captain" moment like in the movie "Dead Poets Society." I dreamed I would have many such moments. It hasn't happened yet, but I can still dream.
But I think that one of the reasons I haven't had any of these moments is because my kids don't know how to think that way. They don't know how to let literature carry them away. The magic of language is lost on them. They know how to find answers to recall questions in a story, because that is all they have been taught to do. But they have no clue as to how to delve deeper into a text and really absorb it. It breaks my heart.
Now they will have even less of a reason to figure out how to do that. Now they will do exactly what they think the teacher wants them to, so they can get the grade and earn from $20 to $50. They won't care what they learned, they will just want the grade so they can plan on their next shopping trip.
So many of my students are on public assistance. They get vouchers to help them pay for rent. They get a Link card (electronic food stamps) to pay for groceries. They know that having another child will increase the amount of assistance they get. Many of them live with parents or guardians who don't work.
They don't see the value in much of anything. Which is tragic and sad.
I am not arguing against public assistance programs -- please understand. I think we have an obligation to help those less fortunate. But the problem with these programs is that they don't seem to give people the tools to not need help. My kids take it for granted that they will never have to pay full price for housing or have to pay for groceries.
And now they will take it for granted that school is just another way to perhaps make a little money. With no thought into what school is supposed to be.
If we raise a generation (not counting the ones we've already raised) who can't think independently, then who is going to write the next great American novels? Who is going to figure out how to solve our energy crisis? Who is going to tackle the problems that my generation and the ones before have left?
This is another example of how we further cripple our poorest children. It is almost like we want to keep them poor and in need of our assistance. I just don't understand when this is going to stop or when we will figure out that our current system of public education is not working.
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And Haggismold, I don't disagree with you, but I do think the consequences are more dire for our poorest students. If you don't have the reading, writing, and math skills you need, plus you have no higher order thinking skills, and you have no motivation, then what exactly are you supposed to do? How will you ever escape this situation?
I remember some classmates of mine getting $10 or $20 per 'A' in the '80s. Others got rewards such as an outing to Pizza Hut. There's a difference from acknowledging high acheivements and bribing kids.
And so it should be with grades.
I worked with youth at risk to transition them to the real world. My greatest barrier was in getting them to actually see that there was hope for them. They gave up many years ago and did not count themselves among the lucky. When I built a rapport with them and they trusted me, I told them about FAFSA and how they could go to the local community college for free and come out making a living wage. Once they internalize this chance for them, they usually took fire.
Poor families have low expectations for themselves so the children do too. The schools need to build that lost expectation into the students from elementary school--You can go to college! You can get a good job! You can have a good future!
Many feel that after a dismal school career they have lost any chance they had. I tell these 1.0 gpa students: "I don't care how bad your grades are! I don't care how poor your folks are! You can still go to college and get a good job."
It's not the literature which needs to turn them on. If they are given a reason to hope for a better future, they will turn themselves on.
As I say, this is just speculation; some of you know a lot more about this than I do.
Second, I have a story to share with you from my days as a teacher's aide. We had one student that was really struggling to get his multiplication tables learned. He could not move up to divison, without the former.
So, the teacher and I decided to see if an incentive would work. Turns out, one of his biggest desires at 15 years old was to have dinner at a place called Redwood Inn just off 57 in Kankakee. It was an all you can eat buffet of tolerable quality, but for some reason sounded like nirvana to him.
The deal was he had to be able to get through ALL the multiplication flash cards without a mistake. He had one huge block. Because it flowed from his lips better, he could never get 4 x 8 as 32. He always said, "Four time eight is Forty-eight". So, no dinner.
I tried EVERYTHING in my power to get him to remember that one card properly -- I was on a mission. Finally, we had to put a time limit on it -- he had to do it by the end of the week, or the dinner was off. That little booger (actually 6'2") had been playing me -- he got it that same afternoon. I guess he liked the personal attention of doing flash cards with his young teach...
I have to say, we really enjoyed taking him out to his reward dinner. He was all smiles and joy.
Unfortunately, even some of the easier times tables went out of his head as soon as we moved toward some progress in division.
Maybe, for some kids, rote memorization to pass is the best that can happpen for them, in spite of the best intentions? And, for some, as I have suspected over the years, there are MANY motivations as to why they learn one thing and not the other.
What I cannot figure is why are they paying students for grades other than in the poorest schools? Is it because (gasp!) they have more funding at those schools? So, on and on goes the vicious circle...You are still my hero for all that you do. Go get 'em!
I'm at Whitehaven HS, in South Memphis, which is actually an all black school, name not withstanding. Though I may be laid off tomorrow b/c the city council cut all funds to the Board of Education (about 57 million) in a political stunt. The BoE/Superintendent are laying off about 150 teachers and it's all based on seniority, not qualifications. Hopefully, since my classes require "specialized training" I will be spared. We'll see. The union isn't standing up for those of us with no seniority, which sucks, b/c I am one of the union reps for my school.
Anyway, I am enjoying your writing and maybe I'll start contributing too. We could probably have some really interesting discussions about urban ed.
I hope motherhood and family life and everything else is going well for you.
Jason
Anyway, please start writing for Open Salon. I would love to read your stuff. And yes -- we can swap horror stories. There are so many, and no one is doing anything about it. It just drives me mad.
How is your family?
Making school a job means it will give more substantiation to the limiting idea that learning only happens in school. It boils down to ownership. A student who believes that ownership (responsibility) rests with parents and teachers will not give nearly as much energy and attention to learning as a student who understands the ownership and consequences belongs only to him/herself.
When you don’t accept ownership, you also find it very convenient to blame everything and everyone else but yourself.
Paying students is just one more attempt to try and solve the symptom instead of the problem. Public school systems need to consider that the way they are teaching and rewarding learning is what needs to change.
As you may know, the Chicago organization Parents United for Responsible Education is against this approach and they are speaking to the media today to try and stop this idea before it goes further. Here is their website if you want to learn more.
http://pureparents.org/index.php?blog/show/Moolah_for_School
I would have been a wilted little biscuit if school had been that way for me. How about "Wow them with something wonderful in the subject area from day one? Hook them with your own passion for the subject with something that can connect to their worlds." (And Amy, I know that is much easier said than done for kids who haven't ever been turned on by learning.)
I just know that most of them can't wait to get to kindergarten, and that we burst that bubble for most of them in a very short time.
Passion--for me that's the key to happiness in everything.
I don't know how to fix all that's wrong or to make students care about something so foreign to their worlds, but I know procedures aren't the answer.
Kohn's point, which he demonstrates with overwhelming evidence (and he personally interviews and debunks BF Skinner), is that behaviorism is counterproductive to stated goals. It works against motivating students to be independent thinkers and learners.
I'm totally with you, Amy.
(And Lydieth A, I hear you. I've traversed the edges of education--made my living there without fully being an insider--precisely because the system is all wrong. I can't bring myself to become complicit. Which now sounds incriminating toward you and Amy, which isn't at all what I mean--just that it's so damn hard to do it right, given the parameters, isn't it? Bless you both.)
LydiethA -- I am definitely less passionate than I used to be, which makes me mad! So I guess I'm still passionate, but now it's about school reform and poverty issues more than literature. Which still doesn't seem to help my students that much. And you are right about procedures -- if I hear the term "classroom management" one more time I will scream.
Lainey -- I know exactly what you mean -- you have to not get too engaged or it will break you in two!
I really appreciate everyone's comments.
That picture of you is goddamn adorable. The stringy tie and everything? I just want to eat you up. :)
I also think many of the students who come from low-income/poverty stricken environments have live their entire lives with low/no expectations. I think many teachers and parents don't believe their children can/will be successful. If you ask many of these students about success, they feel like they are only successful if they are in the lime light (i.e. professional athlete/rap artist). I think the media has done a good job of perpetuating that image.
I remember watching Oprah once and the Johnson & Johnson heir was doing a documentary about being "Born Rich." He went to the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago and asked a Black man with his young son (maybe 4 years old) do he think his son will ever make it out of the projects. The man replied "No, look at him, he ain't no rapper or athlete." I never forgot that man or his son. What the father did was cursed his son for life. Whatever dreams this little boy may have had, his father just ruined it for him. The sad reality is many inner city kids only think they can become a rapper or athlete. They look for money because it is the one thing they lack the most.
I think the people who come up with the "great" ideas don't realize they are setting these children up for failure. A lot of these kids can't think long term because they don't think they will live to see that day. I have had many students to say things like why plan for the future when they may die by the time they've reached 21. I had to tell them, what happens if you don't?
I wonder what will happen when/if the money runs out?
Two questions come to mind in light of the paying job of student: what are the implications for the teacher who "cost" me my paycheck by grading hard, and what will be the impact on incidences of cheating?
For wealthy schools and their students, this is already a truth: get in the top ten, be valedictorian to get into the best school to get the best post-doc to earn the most bucks. Are the scholarship programs now in place not already a pay for success system?
I spent 15 years telling freshmen that school was their full-time job, that every point on every quiz was worth a dollar, since a diploma was worth a million bucks in the workplace. What will the effects be of actually paying those dollars?
Again and again, the community looks for ways to improve the education of the young and leaves the family out of the equation. That's because parents are voters. How can you tell them that the home environment and attitude toward education is critical? Can you pay parents to attend conferences? To read to their small children, to model pleasure reading for them as they grow?
We are all in this together, so we better figure it out. The future looks bleak without a change.