Last class we discussed the problems with rewarding teachers for their teaching. Doing this can cause more bad than good. Teachers can try to cheat the system by boosting their students grades by giving them easy tests and other things. There was already a study in Chicago that around 5% of the teachers "helped" their students improve their grades on the standardized tests.
We also learned in class that you can't motivate someone using just money because people are more complicated than that. Employers need to find other means to motivate their workers other than throwing money at them. Doing this too much can often lead to a decrease in motivation and even lead to unethical behavior.
Truth is, money is important to everyone but people need more than that to be motivated.
I agree that the way teachers are evaluated currently may do more bad than good. However I do believe that there needs to be some kind of system to measure their abilities. The question becomes how can we do this most effectively.
ReplyDeleteI think money becomes important to people when nothing else is a motive. I think it's human nature to be unsatisfied, when people are satisfied by other things, like if they have good working conditions, and benefits, then their money becomes even more important
I agree with you that money is important but not the best motivator. When you think about it what is the real difference between $1 million and $2 million? You will still be able to live comfortable on both. Therefore this would not be a strong motivator unless you are dealing with an overly greedy individual. Employers should not take the easy route and use money to motivate their employees but should ask them what they want or try and use benefits or something meaningful to get them motivated.
ReplyDeleteThe thing about using money is that the line of efficiency to money is different with everyone. And by making the money reward vary from person to person you'll then bring up the equity theory issues and again you're setting everyone back. Motivators of money should be avoided. I thought the Australian companies thing of 1 day for whatever was a great reward and the company still benefited most because of the innovations created.
ReplyDeleteIt kind of sucks that the study showed that teachers would change standardized test scores just to get some sort of a bonus. This shows that the teacher obviously shows no real care for his/her actual job of teaching and just concerned with money. Maybe these types of people shouldn't be teachers at all?
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