As spring break ends, as teachers and students return to school (somewhat reluctantly in both cases, given recent labour clashes), we should consider the issue of salaries and payment.
Nope, not for the teachers. For the kids.
There has long been a debate about whether or not students should be paid for going to school, or more usually, for getting good grades.
When I was a child, I was jealous of the kids who got $10 for an A or $5 for a B.
But my parents explained to me that they expected me to get good grades because education was important for its own sake. And anyway, I was getting 50 cents a week in allowance, what did I need cash from grades for!
Actually, some research seems to bear out my parents' point. Giving people money for an activity turns it into a job, and it tends to lessen their enjoyment of that activity. In experiments with groups of children, and even adults, people given pens to colour with or puzzles to solve would work longer at their tasks if they weren't being paid. They got caught up in the enjoyment of the thing. Whereas those being paid would stop as soon as the money tap was turned off.
This is why I've never accepted any money for my work. Hey, I enjoy writing and being a reporter! So I show up every day, write stories, take pictures, and lay out pages, purely out of my love of the work. Heck, I'd pay them for the privilege! (Note: No, I would not. I need to eat, and I like being paid.)
That's the weird thing about these discussions about whether or not we should pay students. We hold children and teenagers to completely different standards from ourselves.
An adult who works five or six hours a day, five days a week at a task, for no money, is a volunteer of some kind, and an incredibly dedicated one. They win awards for this kind of thing.
Kids, on the other hand, are expected to not only make the same level of commitment, but to get little to no recognition unless they do exceptionally well. It's all very odd.
But let's leave aside the idea of paying every kid for every A or B grade. Let's just take as a given that it would turn the intrinsic rewards of learning into an extrinsic reward of cash, and would damage their little brains by teaching them that work equals money.
Let's look at one area where we should definitely be paying kids. Let's start paying high school students to graduate.
We know that the difference between graduating and not graduating has a huge impact on lifetime earning potential and on future job prospects. A massive amount of work is expended every year in B.C. trying to shove the graduation rate above 80 per cent and keep it there. At present, 78 per cent of high school students will graduate on schedule, and 81 per cent within six years of starting high school.
So nearly a fifth of high school students don't finish. How many of them would buckle down and finish the last couple of years if they knew they'd be handed a cheque for $1,000 or $2,000 at the end of it? (Maybe some will blow the money on beer, but they'll be drunk high school grads, not dropouts!)
This idea has a few benefits. First, it's focused on a tangible goal that will, hopefully, have a lifelong impact. Second, we'll be able to see pretty quickly how much of an impact it will have.
And finally, it will benefit every student who crosses the threshold, with many of them likely putting it toward their post-secondary education.
It may cost a lot, but would it cost more than having a fifth of our kids not finish school?
Visit Matthew Claxton's blog at http: //tinyurl. com/7mwo2qj or www.langleyadvance.com.
