Playing God as it relates to school & grades

[TT_fold]

In my opinion, many intelligent kids in middle school and high school have the potential to earn A's in school, but fail to do so due to a lack of motivation or a lack of foresight. As a social experiement, I propose that some eccentric stranger (me perhaps?) pays the kids with the 50 lowest GPAs to do well in school.

For instance, out of a class of 300 8th graders, I would pay $10,000 to any student ranked 251st thru 300th for earning straight As in the upcoming semester.

To me, the pros of this social experiement far outweigh the cons. Just from discussing this with some friends, here are a few basic pros and cons to this experiement.

On one hand, for a relatively trivial sum, you can change someone from a D student to an A student, which can be worth millions of dollars to the individual and/or society down the road. In addition, this experiment allows us to estimate just how many D students are really just unmotivated rather than unintelligent.

On the other hand, many of these D students will become A students for that one semester and then just revert back to D-level work once again when they lack financial incentive to succeed. Many of the D students will be incapable of A-work in the first place without resorting to cheating, and the allure of $10,000 will arguably make cheating more prevalent.

Nevertheless, I can't get away from the fact that there are tons of kids out there who won't respond to even the best teacher in the world, but WILL respond to something as petty as a few thousand dollars. A couple of months' worth of income from online poker has the potential to change dozens of lives for the better.

Either I am a social revolutionary or my idea is inherently flawed. Flame away...

As a note - if we could please avoid discussing semantics, that would greatly enhance the discussion. Let's assume this is a one-time social experiment and that no one can cheat the system by failing classes on purpose just so that the eccentric stranger will pay him to boost his grades the following year.

[sexdrugsmoney]

Karl Marx wants to kick your ass. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Jim T]

Let's say that there is someone in the bottom 50 of your target school who is (or has the potential to be) a modern day Edison. What exactly is your offer going to do for him? Fine, he may work hard enough to be given A's in his classwork to make the money for that semester, but will there be any fundamental change? I just don't see it.

The reason that bright kids sometimes do poorly in school has very little to do with "lack of motivation" or anything similar. They simply recognize school for what it is and rebel, though probably not (completely) conciously.

Gatto

And let's not even consider the fact that by middle school, let alone high school, the kids in the bottom 20% are more or less stuck into "remedial" and/or make-work classes. So some teenagers make straight A's in 2nd grade level classes for a few months, big whoop.

[benkahuna]

Middle school grades don't matter, at least for most colleges. The people I knew that did the best in middle school were hardly the best in at my high school and later in college.

Grades are a superficial indicator of success, learning, and study habits. They're even worse as a predictor of future success in education and later in careers.

Your experiment could easily result in kids achieving better grades by means other than actually studying hard and learning, such as cheating. I'm not going to say cheating is valueless though I don't care for it. It may mean someone is smart in non-conventional way or knows how to work a system, some of this skills of resourcesfulness could be useful later in life, however, I think playing by the rules for the most part (unless you're a pioneer in a field) leads to the most consistent long term success.

I think the idea of your experiment (small investment for bigger returns, helping out kids with trouble in school, etc.), but I think the means you mention using to achieve that success and your definition of success (though you obviously have to choose something operationalized and grades are not useless in that regard) are flawed.

[westside_eh]

The problem is that even successful high schoolers are not motivated to learn, only to get good grades. Your solution, although very kind and generous, would only amplify this motivation.

[Cyrus]

I posted something basic to your dilemma in the Politics page a few minutes ago. link

[Spladle Master]

The purpose of the 8th grade is to ensure that 8th graders do not try to get jobs. Your idea is inherently flawed.