Does anyone else see the irony in teachers being paid so little to do a job, then expending their own hard earned money (Big Bucks) to get the job done, thus making themselves poorer? I think this country sadly underpays teachers when most of them, and soon us, will invest their own funds to help reach everyone's children.
If this were someone working for my company, they would be reimbursed for their expenditures. And being truly committed and successful, if they tried to leave, would be offered an increase in salary to keep them. We don't do that with teachers. We don't reward the committment, the sacrifice and the dedication.
~ Stan
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8 comments:
The amount provided for and paid to teachers shows how important education really is to this country as a whole. Individual candidates and the mass public like to say that education is a priority but rarely does anyone "Put their money where their mouth is." In summary, Stan, I agree.
I think that the idea as a whole is interesting, but wonder how many back-flips, somersaults and other tricks we have to do to encourage learning? I mean, we are there to teach in a way that reaches all students, not entertain them. Not that we can't make the lessons interesting! My classes were boring, I had to get the grade, so I did the work. It's frustrating to think that students can't just do the lessons the way we did them. We are all in college, successful, and at the end of our degrees. Is the system really broken or are we making excuses for lazy students?
I think the system is partly broken and I think we run the risk of bribing students to do work if we aren't careful with things like Big Bucks. I promise, my boss is not going to bother bribing me to get the job done - if I don't do it, I get fired, end of story. Do we give students some false perception of the "real world" when we reward their misbehavior by bribing games and lead them to believe that if they sit and pout, someone will find a way to get them to do something much more fun than originally planned?
I agree with Kendra. How far do we go in "bribing" students to do their work? How far is that really going to get them in the real world. They will leave our educational system with the mindset that if they don't want to do something, all they have to do is wait for a bribe big enough to make it worth their effort. The concept behind Big Bucks is good for the present, but I don't think the result will be what we're looking for in the future.
My wife runs across these "bribes" all the time with her students. They are in college asking for "extra credit." I think as high school teachers we need to get students to learn out of the genuine need they have, not by making life like a video game. Weeeeee! That was fun! Stop at a Whammy!
Aren't grades themselves a kind of bribe? I mean really, you're tacking this arbitrary letter onto a student's performance in hopes that will motivate them to do your work. Big Bucks is just honest about it.
Yeah. I'm not going for the "Big Bucks" thing. I have to pay rent. I don't mind putting in some extra time, or a pizza now and then though.
Stan~
I totally agree with you. Our country has their priotities mixed up, as does our own university right now. Too much emphasis is placed on sports (like with our new arena that we will not get to use, but are paying for), wars, money problems, etc. Many of the things that our government is spending money on would not be a problem if people were better educated.
~Emms
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