Paying kids to get good grades

[Mondo]

I personally support the idea that parents should show their children that they appreciate academic success- especially at a young age. It becomes something that the child remembers as he or she grows older. Moderation is the key. One shouldn't spoil the child too much or you will become like one of those 'rich bitches' or 'rich man-bitches' that attend my university.

Except I wasn't generalizing. The stuff came from research. However...INTJs and INFJs will shut down at any school that emphasizes rote learning over anaysis/synthesis/construction of knowledge and doesn't allow for independent pursuit of topics of interest. Unfortunately, most AP courses emphasize rote learning (there are fantastic exceptions but usually it's cram for the test). Here's what a whole ton of studies show:

• INTJs and INFJs have the highest GPAs on average, with ISTJs close behind.
• INFPs and INTPs have higher IQs (not that this measures intelligence but it does correlate with the junk that schools usually honor as thinking skills)
• SP's make up about 90% of students in alternative schools. Note that not that high a % of the population ends up in alternative high schools but it shows how little the needs of these students are met...
• Although 75% of the population prefers Sensing, 82% of the Merit Scholarships, based on the PSAT, go to Intuitives. This is after leveling the playing field for who's taken the most AP classes. On the SAT, there's a 250 point average difference between the highest-scoring type and lowest-scoring. The test is extremely biased in favor of the Intuitive style fo guessing. It was written by Intuitives...
• EPs are most likely to be misdiagnosed as ADHD;IPs as ADD. All types can have these conditions but the misdiagnosis usually falls in these categories.

What I'm seeing is more and more rote learning in the wake of No Child Left Behind, demotivating rather than improving the performance of bright children of every type...

All I have is anecdotal evidence but there are some things I will disagree with here. I know a lot of SJ's and SP's who did really well on the SAT. They were either
a.) bright- and yes there are lot of bright Sensors as there are a lot of not-so-bright iNtuitives.
b.) spent THOUSANDS of dollars on SAT prep!!!!

A lot of people say that the SAT is a "follow your gut" test but I don't think I had to do that at all. If anything I'd say that my Ti (strong analytical skills) helped me a lot more than my Ne.

I'm happy I got my sky-high SAT score for near free (well, I paid money to take the test and I did take the PSAT.. twice.)

 

[Firelie]

My parents gave my brother and I $10 for every A and $5 for every B, but we never did it for the money; it was just a nice bonus after getting straight A's.

 

[Usehername]

Except I wasn't generalizing. The stuff came from research. However...INTJs and INFJs will shut down at any school that emphasizes rote learning over anaysis/synthesis/construction of knowledge and doesn't allow for independent pursuit of topics of interest. Unfortunately, most AP courses emphasize rote learning (there are fantastic exceptions but usually it's cram for the test). Here's what a whole ton of studies show:

• INTJs and INFJs have the highest GPAs on average, with ISTJs close behind.
• INFPs and INTPs have higher IQs (not that this measures intelligence but it does correlate with the junk that schools usually honor as thinking skills)
• SP's make up about 90% of students in alternative schools. Note that not that high a % of the population ends up in alternative high schools but it shows how little the needs of these students are met...
• Although 75% of the population prefers Sensing, 82% of the Merit Scholarships, based on the PSAT, go to Intuitives. This is after leveling the playing field for who's taken the most AP classes. On the SAT, there's a 250 point average difference between the highest-scoring type and lowest-scoring. The test is extremely biased in favor of the Intuitive style fo guessing. It was written by Intuitives...
• EPs are most likely to be misdiagnosed as ADHD;IPs as ADD. All types can have these conditions but the misdiagnosis usually falls in these categories.

What I'm seeing is more and more rote learning in the wake of No Child Left Behind, demotivating rather than improving the performance of bright children of every type...

This analysis is very Americanized, though. It doesn't even translate to Canada.

Our trade schools are called "College" (as opposed to University, which is not the same thing) and though they're not as theoretical, you come out of there with a solid job (it's lined up for you) and solid professional wages, usually enough to raise a family on.

Being that our systems are different, though I'd suspect more xSxPs go the College route in our country, I'd also suspect it's far more diversified than what Americans would experience in their differently set up schools.

We still have our British influence--University has always been more "edification for the purpose of enlightenment" rather than pragmatic--this whole "University for career preparation" stuff only began occurring in Canada after the Free Trade Agreement in 1989. As such, our University attendance is a fraction of yours, and far more people of all types choose the pragmatic College route.

 

[Mondo]

edcoaching,

Not that I don't trust the results but I am curious to where you got the studies from. I notice that you had a couple other posts with results from research and I'm curious to see if there are any true relationships between type preferences and abilities/beliefs.

 

[substitute]

there's always the issue of what happens when you go through a bad patch and don't manage to get any A's? does your social life take a dive because the money you've been able to rely on getting stops? do you punish yourself and feel like a failure and a loser? do you worry that your parents don't love you/aren't proud of you unless you're a straight A student?

Actually my parents did the opposite of encouraging me, but I got straight A's all through school... I sorta did it despite them, not because of. I looked at the way they were and said "I don't want to be like that", and that motivated me plenty.

 

[redacted]

Except I wasn't generalizing. The stuff came from research. However...INTJs and INFJs will shut down at any school that emphasizes rote learning over anaysis/synthesis/construction of knowledge and doesn't allow for independent pursuit of topics of interest. Unfortunately, most AP courses emphasize rote learning (there are fantastic exceptions but usually it's cram for the test). Here's what a whole ton of studies show:

• INTJs and INFJs have the highest GPAs on average, with ISTJs close behind.

• 
  
  Man. Where are all these schools that don't emphasize rote learning? I go to UCB now and still have the same issue.

 

[Enyo]

Recently an online friend of mine, whom I know fairly well, said that for a few years when she was in school her parents payed her every time she got an A. She payed them the same amount for every B she got. Normally I don't get worked up about money-related issues, but for some reason this didn't sit well with me...maybe it's because my family isn't exactly rich and I've never gotten payed despite the fact that I make mostly A's and a few B's. That was my first reaction, anyway.

But the more I think about it, the more glad I am that they don't pay me...something seems wrong about bribing your kids to get them ahead. If they're as smart as you want them to be, then shouldn't they be able to do this on their own, without getting money involved? On the other hand, if it was actually her idea and she asked them to pay her for making good grades, doesn't that still sort of make it all a lie?

I guess the reason I'm so confused about it is that she's a fairly intelligent and principled person whom I wouldn't expect to get involved with it if it were bad...so am I wrong?

Now that my son is in middle school, I pay him $5 per A. He lives on the other side of the continent, so I don't get to do a lot of the day-to-day stuff with him. I'll help him with his homework over the phone and encourage him, but that's pretty much it.

He didn't ask me to pay him, and at that amount, it's not enough to be a bribe, but more of a recognition of good work. For my son, though, he's very smart, but also very lazy about doing his homework. He's getting better now, though, since he's beginning to understand that there is a correlation between good grades and getting into a good school and scholarships.

 

[Little Linguist]

I never got paid for grades, I was definitely pressured due to poor finances in our family back then, but I was always fearful of bad grades instead of trying to learn from them and move on. It sort of undermined my confidence a bit. I felt like a mistake was fatal almost, like I would surely choke upon entering my home instead of simply thinking "That sucks! Now I don't get that comic book I wanted!" or something.

The thing is, "bribing" albeit an accurate word may be necessary. Children need motivation, and I sure as shit did NOT value my education the way I do now back then. I did it out of fear, not because I had any positive value for school. I think that would have made my school career a lot easier.



Right. School is your career, and incentives must be there for anyone to succeed at anything, if you have no goal to work toward you won't want to work at all. The diploma is not always the thing most valued, even though they might value it and appreciate the effort put into it later on, it wasn't the focal point for me in school.

My situation was very similar to yours, Kyuuei, when I was growing up. I grew up with my grandparents, who were retired at the time and made an average of 20-30k a year, 3k of which went towards private education per year. We were just far enough above the financial aid bracket to not qualify for help, but we earned too little, so it REALLY hurt.

My family basically made the following deal with me: You do not have to get a job and earn money (even though we could really use it) if you promise to get good grades and study hard. They even eased up on me and did not expect me to do chores.

The concept was: If you get excellent grades, you will get a very good scholarship to go to university. If you do not, we cannot send you to university. So forget working and just study hard so you can get ahead.

I had so much inner drive, that I often forgot to eat and drink, much less have a life. I was so driven that most people thought I was some kinda crazy IXTJ for a long-ass time. Trust me, when you have that kind of pressure on you, you do not need money. You feel like shit if you get anything less than perfect because you know how much your family is sacrificing to give you all they can.

Of course most people don't grow up under those conditions, so I GUESS they need some kind of external force to push them (especially if they are E's and the force does not come from the circumstances, as in my case).

But I'm hesitant to say that MONEY is the correct answer. I mean, isn't our society and aren't our kids sooooo focused on materialism? Shouldn't this be a kind of 'survival of the fittest' where the brightest and the most capable succeed?

I'm not sure if money should fit into the equation. For people that have a lot of money, this point is moot because they don't even need the money. For people without money, the point is moot because they don't have the money.

So we're basically talking about - excuse me for the crass term - yuppie and upper-middle class to middle-class parents who wonder how to get kids off their asses and work. Pfft...I don't know. I had thought that by that time you would have taught your children the values of hard work and studying WITHOUT financial compensation just by your OWN good example. Heh.

On the other hand, I have no kids, and I was raised very *very* traditionally (since my grandparents raised me), so I have some wacked-out and old-fashioned views regarding raising kids, I guess. That's why I'm anxious about having them because I damned well have no idea how someone can do it in this day and age. So I could very well be talking out my ass, farting, and saying crap.

*shrugs* I don't know. It just doesn't sit well with me.

 

[V Profane]

I don't have a problem with incentivising kids to try harder with their studies, which is what 'paying' them is. Particularly if they, like my younger self, were rightfully disillusioned by the knee-high bullshit compulsory education forces children to wade through.

In later life it's much easier to see the value of education, knowledge and learning for it's own sake. I think most kids could use all the encouragement they can get to make the most of what, for them, is often a bad situation.

 

[alicia91]

SP's make up about 90% of students in alternative schools. Note that not that high a % of the population ends up in alternative high schools but it shows how little the needs of these students are met...

Wow, I didn't know we were such academic failures. I was in gifted classes in elementary and middle school and in all advanced classes in high school. I was also on the honor roll and got into the Uni of my choice. Hmm...guess I'm an exception.

I don't pay my kids for grades but I usually buy them a nice gift or take them on a trip if they've done well at school.

 

[GZA]

This analysis is very Americanized, though. It doesn't even translate to Canada.

Our trade schools are called "College" (as opposed to University, which is not the same thing) and though they're not as theoretical, you come out of there with a solid job (it's lined up for you) and solid professional wages, usually enough to raise a family on.

Being that our systems are different, though I'd suspect more xSxPs go the College route in our country, I'd also suspect it's far more diversified than what Americans would experience in their differently set up schools.

We still have our British influence--University has always been more "edification for the purpose of enlightenment" rather than pragmatic--this whole "University for career preparation" stuff only began occurring in Canada after the Free Trade Agreement in 1989. As such, our University attendance is a fraction of yours, and far more people of all types choose the pragmatic College route.

We also don't have SAT and other sort of standardized measures. We just use grades and maybe stuff like what extra caricular stuff you did, but only soemtimes. Another difference is that we don't care aboutt he specific school as much, but the degree. In the US in seems if you went to Harvard or whatever it's a big deal and theirs so much reputation so you look good, in here it's just having the degree and the knowledge, while the reputation of schools is a lot more understated and almost secretive.

 

[FDG]

Mmhm. My familiy isn't rich at all, but I never felt pressured to get good grades. I mean, getting good grades is one of the easiest things to do here on earth. Free climbing is something difficult

 

[edcoaching]

All I have is anecdotal evidence but there are some things I will disagree with here. I know a lot of SJ's and SP's who did really well on the SAT. They were either
a.) bright- and yes there are lot of bright Sensors as there are a lot of not-so-bright iNtuitives.
b.) spent THOUSANDS of dollars on SAT prep!!!!

A lot of people say that the SAT is a "follow your gut" test but I don't think I had to do that at all. If anything I'd say that my Ti (strong analytical skills) helped me a lot more than my Ne.

I'm happy I got my sky-high SAT score for near free (well, I paid money to take the test and I did take the PSAT.. twice.)

But the Merit scholarships go to the top 1%--and of course 18% or so of those are Sensing types. The SAT doesn't measure intelligence, anyway, only how well you will do the first 6 months of college (that's what it was designed to do if you read the official literature on it). The playing field narrowed a bit when the test dumped the analogy section, the true N playing field. Move down from the top 1-2% and you'll find lots of S's, yes.

And the prep can improve scores. If your goal is to get into a college that insists on high scores, then the $ spent are worth it, I guess.

 

[edcoaching]

edcoaching,

Not that I don't trust the results but I am curious to where you got the studies from. I notice that you had a couple other posts with results from research and I'm curious to see if there are any true relationships between type preferences and abilities/beliefs.

SATs don't measure intelligence or abilities; the test was designed to help predict how well students will do their first six months of college.

There's actually an Isabel Briggs Memorial Library at www.capt.org. The bibliography is online but you have to request and pay small copy charges to actually read anything--or go to Gainesville. The MBTI manual (another print-only document) summarizes all kinds of studies.

The PSAT/merit scholar info has been verified in several studies and it pretty much comes down to the N advantage on analogies and the fact that you are penalized for guessing. N's trust their hunches; S's get more and more nervous.

The SAT information came from a study of 9000 students in MA where the SAT publishers gave the researchers item-by-item responses for all the students. They only compared students who had the course prep, AP classes etc., and the predictor of score variance was type. Again, it came down to the items on which more students were guessing. This study was before they removed the analogy section from the SAT which helps S's some.

But the truth still remains that it's a biased test. Isabel Myers did the first studies on it back in the 1960's when the real MBTI was actually published by ETS, who also publish the SAT. She pointed out the biases and they didn't like her results. Most likely (and people who have worked there have said this is true) the test designers were mostly Intuitive and designed it with their definition of intelligence/college skills in mind.

 

[edcoaching]

Man. Where are all these schools that don't emphasize rote learning? I go to UCB now and still have the same issue.

Hooray for small liberal arts colleges. International Baccalaureate schools. (Sometimes) high schools located near research universities or in college towns where there are enough professor's kids who push for inquiry-based learning.

Some AP high schools pull it off.

 

[edcoaching]

Wow, I didn't know we were such academic failures. I was in gifted classes in elementary and middle school and in all advanced classes in high school. I was also on the honor roll and got into the Uni of my choice. Hmm...guess I'm an exception.

I don't pay my kids for grades but I usually buy them a nice gift or take them on a trip if they've done well at school.

• Well, only a small part of the population ends up in those alternative high schools--and they exist to contain behavior, not academic, problems. So of course tons of SPs succeed in schools
• One study interviewed students about how they got into trouble and a lot of the SPs admitted to spontaneous experiments: "If I do this, what will the teacher do?" If it became a habit, they spent a lot of time in the principal's office.
• A large percentage of elementary teachers are SJ and they're the type most likely to see the above SP behavior as disobedient rather than kinda natural kid stuff, setting the SPs of the world up for trouble. Again, lots figure out how to play the game.

Another way to say it is that all types have ways of getting into trouble at school (well, all but a couple types...). The SP style, though, is most likely to result in getting into trouble with consequences. Watch Cool Hand Luke to see what I mean. EN's tend to be more scheming about it and may either never get caught or scheme in such ways that the admin look like idiots and nothing is done. INs read books in the back of the room and even if they get kicked out for doing it, it's not the same kind of trouble. Or, they simply refuse to do dumb assignments and fail, but they don't care.

 

[FDG]

ecoachin, there's a fundamental problem with every theory that claims that N types score higher on IQ tests/SAT tests than S types:

often the questions used to determine whether a person is N or S directly tie into how smart the person is, which means that very often smart sensors score as intuitives (on MBTI). This obviously biases these types of research.

 

[edcoaching]

ecoachin, there's a fundamental problem with every theory that claims that N types score higher on IQ tests/SAT tests than S types:

often the questions used to determine whether a person is N or S directly tie into how smart the person is, which means that very often smart sensors score as intuitives (on MBTI). This obviously biases these types of research.

Get a room of educators together who haven't just taken an inventory to determine their type but have verified it through experiential exercises and study. Divide them into S and N groups to talk about their experiences with grades and with standardized tests. You will find a higher % of N's who scored high on the standardized tests without a whole lot of prep. You will find a higher % of S's who got fantastic grades and did worse than they expected to on the standardized tests--seeing their scores they felt like they'd been kicked in the stomach. Obviously there will be some exceptions on each side.

I do not think N's are smarter than S's. I think that the US education system, at least, is biased in favor of Intuition. I don't really want to argue about whether the design of the study overidentified S's as N's because that takes the focus off the fact that the system is still putting more S's at risk and with our Merit Scholar system, a whole lot of scholarship $$ is at stake.

Another example is out of North Carolina State. Federer, an engineering professor, taught type to his students and soon the school realized that N's were graduating in engineering at a much higher rate than S's. They changed the course sequence so that the first classes were more hands on rather than abstract/theoretical and equaled the graduation rate.

That's what I want to see happen everywhere--recognize type biases in how things are being taught/assessed and level the playing field !!

 

[ygolo]

Another example is out of North Carolina State. Federer, an engineering professor, taught type to his students and soon the school realized that N's were graduating in engineering at a much higher rate than S's. They changed the course sequence so that the first classes were more hands on rather than abstract/theoretical and equaled the graduation rate.

That's what I want to see happen everywhere--recognize type biases in how things are being taught/assessed and level the playing field !!

I am curious did it drop the graduation rates of Ns at the same time as the S graduation rates went-up? Or did the N grad. rate stay constant?

 

[Gen]

I do not think N's are smarter than S's. I think that the US education system, at least, is biased in favor of Intuition.

Just because Ns tend to get better grades or higher test scores doesn't necessarily mean that the system is skewed to favor Ns. It may, as distasteful as it feels, actually mean that Ns tend to be smarter and/or find learning easier. Most Ns in the U.S. would probably IME agree that the system feels extremely S biased with all its emphasis on rote learning.