More on "extra credit"

I don't oppose the kind of "extra credit" Dave talked about: I've done that myself, both as a student and as a prof, where you offer the people willing to go a bit over and above, to work harder, the chance to earn back points they lost.

What bugs me is how some folks (coughcolleagueofminecough) hand it out like it's candy.

Because, see, giving people stuff for what they're SUPPOSED to be doing, doesn't seem to work:

Bribery Strikes Out, at Joanne Jacobs'.

The best quotation in the whole thing: "But it’s hard to get self-discipline by paying people to do what they should be doing anyhow."

THAT. And the other problem is, I think you erode motivation by offering goodies for people doing stuff they should be doing anyhow. How many times I've heard, as a prof, in an 8 am Friday class that's sparsely populated, "Do we get extra credit because we showed up?"

While I've never QUITE got to the point of the Wicked Witch of the West voice coming out and snarling "NO, because you are SUPPOSED to be here," I've come close.

I don't have any opposition to giving people a hand up - or to trying to make it easier somehow (like, I don't know - making it easier for parents to find decent child care so they can work?) But I do have a problem with paying kids to go to school. Or paying for grades. Or paying people (over and above the free care they get through Medicare) just for taking their kids to the doctor.

It's great to encourage initiative. But there comes a point where the "encouragement" becomes a payoff for doing things that responsible people would do anyway, and that seems excessive.

I'm not advocating we let people starve in the streets or anything (not that that's exactly happening in this country). I'm not saying people who genuinely - because of some deficiency - cannot take care of themselves should be thrust out into the world to fend for themselves. But when college students start applying for food stamps so they can eat a higher-quality of food, and they see no shame in it or nothing wrong with it, when students begin expecting some kind of "payout" in tangible form (cash, points, goodies) for everything they do, we have a problem.

I suspect that one of the things that will cause "responsible" people to sit down and say "That's it, I'm not doing any more" is going to be that it reaches a point where we feel like chumps: like we're working long hours and doing what we're "supposed" to do, and the people who don't do those things get a pat on the head and a lollipop, and we get the government rooting around in our pockets for spare change.

(Incidentally, this is also why I support programs through places like the Salvation Army; they seem geared to helping people who need short-term help but who want to get on their own feet. I'm glad to help someone in a rough patch who wants to be self-sufficient eventually. Not so much someone who doesn't want to work and thinks I should support them. Happy Tax Day...)