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NY Times Ethicism Finds it Hypocritical "To Insulate the Classrooms from the Innocuous Effects of Cash" Innocuous?
A friend who teaches high-school English often talks about how tough it is to motivate students. For his next exam, he is considering a $20 bill as a reward to whoever gets the highest score. I said that that sounded unethical, but now I'm not so sure. If love of knowledge alone is the reward, why do schools offer prizes? Is it O.K. to offer students a cash incentive? David Galef, Oxford, Miss.
I agree: schools already offer students various incentives to excel (praise, prizes, admission to good colleges), along with disincentives for failure (being cut from a sports team, being harangued by parents and, for much of Western history, being hit with a stick), although few as vulgar as cash. But money, too, is proffered discreetly, in the form of a scholarship or an Ivy education leading to a high-paying job. I see no ethical objection to your friend's making that offer explicit. (''And what will you, the winner, receive for getting the best grade on the midterm? A brand-new car! And where will you be driving it? Hawaii!'')
Nor am I persuaded that money undermines the love of the task itself. The million dollars that accompanies the Nobel Prize has not discouraged an affection for physics or literature among its winners. Throughout the working world, those who most enjoy their jobs are often the best-paid employees (surgeons, C.E.O.'s, LeBron James), while those with unpleasant jobs (slaughterhouse workers, chemical-waste cleaners) often earn little. It seems hypocritical to insulate the classroom from the innocuous effects of cash.
What's more, keeping a classroom cashless is unlikely to turn it into ancient Athens. What most motivates my high-school-age daughter and her friends is not pure scholarship, alas, but the hope of getting into a good college. And while some of her hardest-working classmates take joy in their studies, many do not. However, while it may be ethical to nail that $20 to the mast, it may not be efficacious. The reward seems too small and its eventual arrival too remote to be a goad to learning. But that's a question best left to the teacher, and to the state legislators, who will no doubt be delighted to allocate adequate funds for the next round of ''Name That Nabokov Character.''
— Randy Cohen
Scholarship Aid
New York Times Magazine
June 15, 2003
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/15/magazine/15ETHICIST.html?tntemail0
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