When you read any introductory economics book they always talk about how incentives work. However, do they work in the school house? When you look at grades are they an incentive that drives student learning? When students are young learning how to read is the grade what drives them? Or are kids just naturally attracted to learning?
Even as students grow older, do grades work for everyone or are they just an incentive for the good students? Then look at the opposite side of the coin that teachers get paid no matter if they do a good or a bad job. Does this impact teacher performance. Interested to hear your thoughts?
I feel like, as a student who has never had to struggle extremely hard to get straight As, I've never been conditioned to care that much about the grades. Instead, I've had to find other reasons to motivate myself to keep improving. The biggest motivator for me is a teacher for whom I hold a great deal of respect. Teachers that take a personal interest in their students, as opposed to teaching to "the herd", get their students to work the hardest. Often times I will work my hardest (even for a class who's topic I'm not enthralled by) simply because I don't want to let my teacher down. The best teachers I've ever had have held me to a very high bar. They expect me to think outside the box. They expect me to ask the hard questions. So I do, because I know they expect that from me.
ReplyDeleteThe only time I feel stressed about my grade is when I don't think my grade reflects my performance in the class. If the class is really hard but I am working my butt off, and happen to get a B, I'm not upset. BUT if I feel really confident that I understand the material and I just forgot to turn in an assignment, or I bombed an essay that I knew I should have done much better on, that makes me stressed.
Deletethanks for taking the time to respond. I like you think the teacher is the most important part of the educational process and it saddens me that education is trying to make one size fits all. You have probably had teachers who teach totally differently but hold you to those high standards you enjoy.
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