Yesterday, March 5, 2018, the NBC Evening News[1]
presented a story having to do with motivating eighth graders to behave
civilly. It seems the school, in
Philadelphia, has had a problem with students fighting. The report did not mention the income level
of the students’ households, but let it be one of a low-income area. Why?
If it is, it further makes the point this posting is going to make.
To address the
problem of fighting, the school’s principal hit upon an idea. The eighth grade happens to be the last year
these students will attend this school.
Next year, if they pass their courses, they will be off to high school. The principal apparently decided that
speaking in terms of duty or discipline was not working. Something new had to be employed. How about money?
She made a
deal with the students: if they
refrained from any fights for the duration of the year, every student will
receive, upon graduation, a hundred dollars.
But to get the hundred dollars there cannot be one fight in the time these
eighth graders had left. One fight, by
any of them, and no one will get any money.
So far, according to the report, it’s working; not one fight has
occurred. In addition, the whole tone of
the class – and of the school – has changed.
The news report, highlighting this
one young girl, claims that the students are opting a more positive behavior
not only in terms of these students’ interactions, but in their approach to
their studies. They are exhibiting productive
student behaviors. The atmosphere at the
school has become studious and civil.
Is this a good idea? Is paying students to do what they should be
doing a positive turn? Yes, they might
be better behaved now, but if authorities pay students or citizens, for that
matter, to do what they should be doing, what is the long-term lesson such a
policy would promote? Given the overall
ideals this blog advances – summarily identified as federation theory – can it
support such an innovation?
Paying students is not a new
idea. It has been suggested and
implemented before in other schools. One
can be assured that studies have been conducted as to its viability. But here, this writer wants to limit this
reaction to a purely ideation of its merit.
To help, this posting looks at Kolberg’s model on moral development.
Essentially, Lawrence Kolberg’s model
holds that an individual must progress through stages to arrive at moral decisions
based on moral standards which are generally quite abstract, especially to
young people. Here are those stages[2] written
in shorten phrases: obedience/punishment,
self-interest, conformity and interpersonal accord, authority and social order,
social contract, and universal principles.[3]
Most eighth graders are about 14
years old or so. They are teenagers and
as such they, according to the model, should be at the “authority and social
order” level of moral thought or the “social contract” level. In either case, the moral thinking should be
of the type that the individual can appreciate the social bonds necessary to
carry out a social organization or institutionalized grouping, such as a
school. Yet paying students refers to
the second stage: “self-interest.”
There are various social-personal
conditions that inhibit a person from progressing along these stages. Many of those conditions have to do with
deprivation. Low-income sets those
restraints in place that often lead to deprivation. Poorer people see, feel, and experience those
lacking comparisons they see others enjoy.
Others have finer clothes, finer things to do, finer personal relations,
finer cars, finer vacations – one gets the idea. This lack is not necessarily unjust, but it
has its effect.
Why are low-income areas around the
world those areas more apt to have higher crime rates and the like? Why are their schools less apt to be
successful? Yes, there are the
exceptions. Sometimes those exceptions
are due to some talented professional – a dynamite teacher, preacher, police
officer, etc. But whatever those things
or conditions are, according to Kolberg’s model, one needs to address the moral
questions that corresponds to where they are morally.
If one accepts this notion, then one
can speculate that this principal judged her school’s student prominently being
at the “self-interest” stage and, therefore, needs to find that level of reward
that is meaningful to this group of students.
They should have advanced from this lower stage way back when they
started school. Yet here they are, as
eighth graders, exhibiting that lower level of moral thinking and
decision-making. Hopefully, they “graduate”
from this level before they get to high school.
Consequently, federation theory or
any other approach to human interaction or civic education needs to make allowances
for these types of developmental factors.
There are other types of factors – e.g., developmental motivation
factors[4] – and no
approach to curricular issues can be indifferent to these concerns. An approach needs to be sufficiently nuanced
to account for such realities.
[1] The NBC Evening
News with Lester Holt, NBC News, March 5, 2018.
[2] The terminology varies. The model is presented having three stages
with two steps each. Totally, that would
be six steps that a person must accomplish before moving on to the next
step. Few people accomplish all six
steps and are usually stymied at the third or fourth step.
[3] This terminology and subsequent information is taken
from The Psychology Notes Headquarter (accessed March 5, 2018, https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/kolberg-1-550x382.png&imgrefurl=https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/kohlbergstheory/&h=382&w=550&tbnid=RCfQRhnlhhgKnM:&tbnh=146&tbnw=211&usg=__Iwq_JyVMOnOGnUJeiYZPWXaQ7e0%3D&vet=10ahUKEwiy78iP1tbZAhXEmVkKHS7yDf0Q9QEILTAA..i&docid=EQaID5J_EbwbyM&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy78iP1tbZAhXEmVkKHS7yDf0Q9QEILTAA).
[4] As described by Abraham Maslow’s model on the
motivation of needs.
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