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"RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

More on Dan Pink and his writings: https://www.danpink.com/about/

Alfie Kohn also writes on the topic of intrinsic motivation
https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti...
https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti...
https://www.alfiekohn.org/puni...

I put together a reading list of related ideas here:
"High Performance Organizations Reading List"
https://github.com/pdfernhout/...

Of course, appropriate compensation is important in a society like the USA that has so many exchange transactions (as opposed to subsistence, gift, and planned transactions). Like Dan Pink says, people need to be paid enough to "take money off the table" as an issue. And for some people who like to work independently, saving up money is a way to buy their own time to work on things they care about.

But once money is off the table, these sorts of non-monetary issues affect productivity:
* Purpose (Finding meaning in what you do in how it affects people and the rest of the world)
* Autonomy (being able to make decisions about what you do and how you do it)
* Mastery (personal growth in technical skills and other areas)
* Community
* Infrastructure

Dan Pink talks about the first three in the video above.

Community is related to shared purpose, but I feel is a different thing in itself about how people relate to each other and have fun together. While I feel it problematical to ask employees to travel long distances for special events or to give up evenings or weekends for "team building exercises", a company that uses some of the work day to build community is likely making a good investment. Those can be relatively simple things like lunch-and-learns, holiday parties in the late afternoon, special lunches with invited guests, and so on. Even something like a regular "all hands" meeting to discuss what is going on in the company can help build community. Enjoyable training sessions like using appropriate humor in communications could also help. Even just starting voice or video chats ten minutes before the appointed time so people who show up early can chat briefly about stuff they are doing outside of work can make a difference. But community is not any one thing -- it is about the whole as a culture and also strengthening many individual one-to-one relationships.

Infrastructure overlaps with "Autonomy" to an extent -- but larger organizational choices can make a big difference for software developers; for example:

* The process choices -- e.g. see David Thomas on moving beyond "Agile" to "Agility"

* The tool/language/library choices -- e.g. in the web space there are so many poorly thought out overly-complex systems being adopted like Angular from big-name herd effects. Contrast such overly-complex systems with the idea of simplicity like in "Simple Made Easy" by Rich Hickey (developer of Clojure) or ideas by Chuck Moore (developer of Forth) or by Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls (with Smalltalk) or Leo Horie (with Mithril.js/HyperScript) and Adam Morse (with Tachyons.css). You don't have to use these specific languages or libraries to learn to appreciate things from the perspective of appropriate simplicity as the ultimate elegance, which can then be applied to whatever you are stuck with for legacy reasons.

* Having the appropriate tools you need to do your job (e.g. adequate computing, adequate displays, an appropriate workspace, good audio/visual communications, etc.)

And of course the specific relation an employee has with a manager makes a huge difference, given it is often said people

"RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

More on Dan Pink and his writings: https://www.danpink.com/about/

Alfie Kohn also writes on the topic of intrinsic motivation
https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti...
https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti...
https://www.alfiekohn.org/puni...

I put together a reading list of related ideas here:
"High Performance Organizations Reading List"
https://github.com/pdfernhout/...

Of course, appropriate compensation is important in a society like the USA that has so many exchange transactions (as opposed to subsistence, gift, and planned transactions). Like Dan Pink says, people need to be paid enough to "take money off the table" as an issue. And for some people who like to work independently, saving up money is a way to buy their own time to work on things they care about.

But once money is off the table, these sorts of non-monetary issues affect productivity:
* Purpose (Finding meaning in what you do in how it affects people and the rest of the world)
* Autonomy (being able to make decisions about what you do and how you do it)
* Mastery (personal growth in technical skills and other areas)
* Community
* Infrastructure

Dan Pink talks about the first three in the video above.

Community is related to shared purpose, but I feel is a different thing in itself about how people relate to each other and have fun together. While I feel it problematical to ask employees to travel long distances for special events or to give up evenings or weekends for "team building exercises", a company that uses some of the work day to build community is likely making a good investment. Those can be relatively simple things like lunch-and-learns, holiday parties in the late afternoon, special lunches with invited guests, and so on. Even something like a regular "all hands" meeting to discuss what is going on in the company can help build community. Enjoyable training sessions like using appropriate humor in communications could also help. Even just starting voice or video chats ten minutes before the appointed time so people who show up early can chat briefly about stuff they are doing outside of work can make a difference. But community is not any one thing -- it is about the whole as a culture and also strengthening many individual one-to-one relationships.

Infrastructure overlaps with "Autonomy" to an extent -- but larger organizational choices can make a big difference for software developers; for example:

* The process choices -- e.g. see David Thomas on moving beyond "Agile" to "Agility"

* The tool/language/library choices -- e.g. in the web space there are so many poorly thought out overly-complex systems being adopted like Angular from big-name herd effects. Contrast such overly-complex systems with the idea of simplicity like in "Simple Made Easy" by Rich Hickey (developer of Clojure) or ideas by Chuck Moore (developer of Forth) or by Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls (with Smalltalk) or Leo Horie (with Mithril.js/HyperScript) and Adam Morse (with Tachyons.css). You don't have to use these specific languages or libraries to learn to appreciate things from the perspective of appropriate simplicity as the ultimate elegance, which can then be applied to whatever you are stuck with for legacy reasons.

* Having the appropriate tools you need to do your job (e.g. adequate computing, adequate displays, an appropriate workspace, good audio/visual communications, etc.)

And of course the specific relation an employee has with a manager makes a huge difference, given it is often said people

"RSA ANIMATE: Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

More on Dan Pink and his writings: https://www.danpink.com/about/

Alfie Kohn also writes on the topic of intrinsic motivation
https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti...
https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti...
https://www.alfiekohn.org/puni...

I put together a reading list of related ideas here:
"High Performance Organizations Reading List"
https://github.com/pdfernhout/...

Of course, appropriate compensation is important in a society like the USA that has so many exchange transactions (as opposed to subsistence, gift, and planned transactions). Like Dan Pink says, people need to be paid enough to "take money off the table" as an issue. And for some people who like to work independently, saving up money is a way to buy their own time to work on things they care about.

But once money is off the table, these sorts of non-monetary issues affect productivity:
* Purpose (Finding meaning in what you do in how it affects people and the rest of the world)
* Autonomy (being able to make decisions about what you do and how you do it)
* Mastery (personal growth in technical skills and other areas)
* Community
* Infrastructure

Dan Pink talks about the first three in the video above.

Community is related to shared purpose, but I feel is a different thing in itself about how people relate to each other and have fun together. While I feel it problematical to ask employees to travel long distances for special events or to give up evenings or weekends for "team building exercises", a company that uses some of the work day to build community is likely making a good investment. Those can be relatively simple things like lunch-and-learns, holiday parties in the late afternoon, special lunches with invited guests, and so on. Even something like a regular "all hands" meeting to discuss what is going on in the company can help build community. Enjoyable training sessions like using appropriate humor in communications could also help. Even just starting voice or video chats ten minutes before the appointed time so people who show up early can chat briefly about stuff they are doing outside of work can make a difference. But community is not any one thing -- it is about the whole as a culture and also strengthening many individual one-to-one relationships.

Infrastructure overlaps with "Autonomy" to an extent -- but larger organizational choices can make a big difference for software developers; for example:

* The process choices -- e.g. see David Thomas on moving beyond "Agile" to "Agility"

* The tool/language/library choices -- e.g. in the web space there are so many poorly thought out overly-complex systems being adopted like Angular from big-name herd effects. Contrast such overly-complex systems with the idea of simplicity like in "Simple Made Easy" by Rich Hickey (developer of Clojure) or ideas by Chuck Moore (developer of Forth) or by Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls (with Smalltalk) or Leo Horie (with Mithril.js/HyperScript) and Adam Morse (with Tachyons.css). You don't have to use these specific languages or libraries to learn to appreciate things from the perspective of appropriate simplicity as the ultimate elegance, which can then be applied to whatever you are stuck with for legacy reasons.

* Having the appropriate tools you need to do your job (e.g. adequate computing, adequate displays, an appropriate workspace, good audio/visual communications, etc.)

And of course the specific relation an employee has with a manager makes a huge difference, given it is often said people

That's a good question. The best I see so far from a quick search is satisfaction survey results posted on the website with a lot of "very helpful" results ( https://bullies2buddies.com/do... ) and a decade-old pilot study that shows negligible results from a brief training ( https://www.psychologytoday.co... ). One confounding factor obvious from the pilot study is that kids undergoing the Bullies to Buddies training are less likely to report incidents -- meaning ideally the evaluation should be done other than by self-reports. I agree it would be good to have more recent and more extensive studies of the Bullies to Buddies program. You are right to point to AA as an example of a social movement not being backed by evidence and perhaps pushing out other better options for many people.

Ultimately, there are quite a few "knobs" one could theoretically tweak to reduce bullying in schools, including:
* educate the Victim (Bullies to Buddies or a different approach)
* educate the Bully (most bully training materials)
* educate the Bystander (also, most bully training materials)
* educate the Adults -- Teachers/Administrators/Parents
* general custom emotion coaching for every kid (like say done at the Albany Free School http://www.albanyfreeschool.or... ),
* make it possible for the victim to walk away (e.g. more alternative education options including freeschooling and homeschooling)
* make the environment more interesting and less stressful so kids have many other things to do than taunt each other
* change the nature of the schooling system and teaching so it does not itself model authotarianism/bullying e.g. John Taylor Gatto's writings like (http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=11375)
* de-emphasize competition and promote cooperation (like Alfie Kohn suggests https://www.alfiekohn.org/cont... ) or pursue other ways of reducing needless stress in school like eliminating homework ( https://www.alfiekohn.org/dwh/ ) and grades ( https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti... )
* improve nutrition for everyone ("Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat (Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive behavior" https://www.theguardian.com/po... )
* reduce the stress on families by progressive economics (better-paying jobs, basic income, universal health insurance, bugger tax credits to families with children, and so on)
* other?

That's a good question. The best I see so far from a quick search is satisfaction survey results posted on the website with a lot of "very helpful" results ( https://bullies2buddies.com/do... ) and a decade-old pilot study that shows negligible results from a brief training ( https://www.psychologytoday.co... ). One confounding factor obvious from the pilot study is that kids undergoing the Bullies to Buddies training are less likely to report incidents -- meaning ideally the evaluation should be done other than by self-reports. I agree it would be good to have more recent and more extensive studies of the Bullies to Buddies program. You are right to point to AA as an example of a social movement not being backed by evidence and perhaps pushing out other better options for many people.

Ultimately, there are quite a few "knobs" one could theoretically tweak to reduce bullying in schools, including:
* educate the Victim (Bullies to Buddies or a different approach)
* educate the Bully (most bully training materials)
* educate the Bystander (also, most bully training materials)
* educate the Adults -- Teachers/Administrators/Parents
* general custom emotion coaching for every kid (like say done at the Albany Free School http://www.albanyfreeschool.or... ),
* make it possible for the victim to walk away (e.g. more alternative education options including freeschooling and homeschooling)
* make the environment more interesting and less stressful so kids have many other things to do than taunt each other
* change the nature of the schooling system and teaching so it does not itself model authotarianism/bullying e.g. John Taylor Gatto's writings like (http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=11375)
* de-emphasize competition and promote cooperation (like Alfie Kohn suggests https://www.alfiekohn.org/cont... ) or pursue other ways of reducing needless stress in school like eliminating homework ( https://www.alfiekohn.org/dwh/ ) and grades ( https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti... )
* improve nutrition for everyone ("Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat (Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive behavior" https://www.theguardian.com/po... )
* reduce the stress on families by progressive economics (better-paying jobs, basic income, universal health insurance, bugger tax credits to families with children, and so on)
* other?

That's a good question. The best I see so far from a quick search is satisfaction survey results posted on the website with a lot of "very helpful" results ( https://bullies2buddies.com/do... ) and a decade-old pilot study that shows negligible results from a brief training ( https://www.psychologytoday.co... ). One confounding factor obvious from the pilot study is that kids undergoing the Bullies to Buddies training are less likely to report incidents -- meaning ideally the evaluation should be done other than by self-reports. I agree it would be good to have more recent and more extensive studies of the Bullies to Buddies program. You are right to point to AA as an example of a social movement not being backed by evidence and perhaps pushing out other better options for many people.

Ultimately, there are quite a few "knobs" one could theoretically tweak to reduce bullying in schools, including:
* educate the Victim (Bullies to Buddies or a different approach)
* educate the Bully (most bully training materials)
* educate the Bystander (also, most bully training materials)
* educate the Adults -- Teachers/Administrators/Parents
* general custom emotion coaching for every kid (like say done at the Albany Free School http://www.albanyfreeschool.or... ),
* make it possible for the victim to walk away (e.g. more alternative education options including freeschooling and homeschooling)
* make the environment more interesting and less stressful so kids have many other things to do than taunt each other
* change the nature of the schooling system and teaching so it does not itself model authotarianism/bullying e.g. John Taylor Gatto's writings like (http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=11375)
* de-emphasize competition and promote cooperation (like Alfie Kohn suggests https://www.alfiekohn.org/cont... ) or pursue other ways of reducing needless stress in school like eliminating homework ( https://www.alfiekohn.org/dwh/ ) and grades ( https://www.alfiekohn.org/arti... )
* improve nutrition for everyone ("Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat (Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive behavior" https://www.theguardian.com/po... )
* reduce the stress on families by progressive economics (better-paying jobs, basic income, universal health insurance, bugger tax credits to families with children, and so on)
* other?

I know it sounds counter intuitive but such systems do not work.

https://www.alfiekohn.org/punished-rewards/

http://www.shirky.com/writings...
"This strategy [of micropayments] doesn't work, because the act of buying anything, even if the price is very small, creates what Nick Szabo calls mental transaction costs, the energy required to decide whether something is worth buying or not, regardless of price. ... Like the salami slicing exploit in computer crime, micropayment believers imagine that such tiny amounts of money can be extracted from the user that they will not notice, while the overall volume will cause these payments to add up to something significant for the recipient. But of course the users do notice, because they are being asked to buy something. Mental transaction costs create a minimum level of inconvenience that cannot be removed simply by lowering the dollar cost of goods. Worse, beneath a certain threshold, mental transaction costs actually rise, a phenomenon is especially significant for information goods. It's easy to think a newspaper is worth a dollar, but is each article worth half a penny? Is each word worth a thousandth of a penny? A newspaper, exposed to the logic of micropayments, becomes impossible to value. ..."

My alternative solution is a *mix* of four types of economic activities:
* people producing their own personal content through better personal tools (subsistence production)
* a basic income (to soften the rough edges and rich-get-richer exchange economy)
* people giving away high-quality content (gift economy)
* more government funding of free information providers (an improved democratically-planned command economy)

The promotion of artificial scarcity (e.g. paywalls for digital content) as a way to fund content is one of the biggest problems we are facing as we transition to post-scarcity. There are several reason artificial scarcity is a problem -- but one of the biggest is that ensuring artificial scarcity in an age of technological abundance ultimately requires the equivalent of a police state monitoring everything everyone does 24X7.

See also Alfie Kohn: http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic... and Dan Pink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

There's room for hundreds of billions of people on Earth given better designs. Even if there weren't there is room for quadrillions of humans and associated biosphere in self-replicating space habitats around the solar system.
http://pdfernhout.net/princeto...

Further, the big problem industrialized nations face now is actually falling populations. For an extreme example, Italy may be the future for us all (if we survive the slaughterbots and engineered plagues and nukes etc made by people with scarcity worldviews):
https://www.theguardian.com/wo...
""We are very close to the threshold of non-renewal where the people dying are not replaced by new-borns. That means we are a dying country," Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said. "This situation has enormous implications for every sector: the economy, society, health, pensions, just to give a few examples," Lorenzin said. "We need a wake-up call and a real change of culture to turn the trend around in the coming years," added the minister.""

Even the USA is below replacement without immigration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"As of 2010, about 48% (3.3 billion people) of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility.[3] Nonetheless most of these countries still have growing populations due to immigration, population momentum and increase of the life expectancy. This includes most nations of Europe, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Tunisia, China, the United States and many others. In 2015, all European Union countries had a sub-replacement fertility rate, ranging from a low of 1.31 in Portugal to a high of 1.96 in France.[4]"

Let's say people do need an "arsenal" to keep the peace. How big should it be? The USA, for example, spends essentially all its surplus and then some on an arsenal. Which is part of why we in the USA can't have nice things like pothole-free roads without tolls, longer vacations, high speed broadband, first-rate medical care for everyone, community makerspaces everywhere, tuition-free college, and so on...
https://www.nationalpriorities...

Needless competition, artificial scarcity, and huge for-profit prison populations are other reasons we can't have nice things:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

People are a lot less likely to support autocrats and so on if they aren't desperate.
"The Desperate Middle-Class Voters Who Made Trump the Republican Nominee"
http://time.com/money/4318531/...

Strangely, the USA has the most guns and now also is getting increasingly autocratic -- how does that fit into your model of why we need an arsenal?

Considering compulsory schooling is a relatively recent invention since Prussian times (intended to subordinate almost all citizens into a military hierarchy), how did children learn to interact with other people of all ages before the 1800s?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Hint -- it takes a village to raise child -- and village life is not what kids experience in a typical school (public or private).

To begin with, when do kids in a typical school (public or private) actually get to interact with other kids in a playful loosely-structured way with only occasional adult supervision or intervention like in the past? As opposed to interacting with other people as if they were in a tightly-guarded prison? For many schools, outdoor play and unstructured recess is a thing of the past and kids are punished if they talk to each other in the classroom outside of narrowly prescribed situations. The kid of social interaction kids get in most schools is completely abnormal by historical standards.

Contrast what goes on in a typical school with, say, a "Sudbury Free school" (one of the better private school models, but still not very common):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"A Sudbury school is a type of school, usually for the K-12 age range, where students have complete responsibility for their own education, and the school is run by direct democracy in which students and staff are equals.[1] Students individually decide what to do with their time, and tend to learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather than through coursework. There is no predetermined educational syllabus, prescriptive curriculum or standardized instruction. This is a form of democratic education. Daniel Greenberg, one of the founders of the original Sudbury Model school, writes that the two things that distinguish a Sudbury Model school are that everyone - adults and children - are treated equally and that there is no authority other than that granted by the consent of the governed.[2]"

Although even within that free school model, there are issues related to forcing a kid to be somewhere other than their local community every day. A free school may also not be a great match for more introverted children.

As I write in that essay on post-scarcity unschooling, quoting a job advertisement for truant officers suggesting truancy can lead to violent crime or a least an unsuccessful unproductive life: "See, that is the false choice -- suggesting you either confine a child to prison or they will commit their first violent crime and have to be imprisoned. That is a very dim view of human nature, neighborhoods and families. Yet, it is a self justifying view, in part destroying the very neighborhood fabric it claims to be defending. So, we are left with streets that are safe because there are no people on them. We have successfully destroyed the village in order to save it, using compulsory schooling instead of napalm."

Or in this case, you suggest unless kids are put in prison for their formative years they will become "freaks".

Given thousands of years of human history raising kids at home and in villages and towns (and yes, cities), doesn't the historical evidence suggest that it would more likely be the other way around? Especially when compulsory schooling was designed precisely to produce cannon fodder for Prussian wars? Which then coincided with two world wars originating out of the Prussian area?

See also Alfie Kohn on bad effects of extrinsic rewards for learning, competition with other kids, and also of grading:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/punis...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/conte...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...

As John Taylor Gatto points out, between school kids and teachers a

Considering compulsory schooling is a relatively recent invention since Prussian times (intended to subordinate almost all citizens into a military hierarchy), how did children learn to interact with other people of all ages before the 1800s?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Hint -- it takes a village to raise child -- and village life is not what kids experience in a typical school (public or private).

To begin with, when do kids in a typical school (public or private) actually get to interact with other kids in a playful loosely-structured way with only occasional adult supervision or intervention like in the past? As opposed to interacting with other people as if they were in a tightly-guarded prison? For many schools, outdoor play and unstructured recess is a thing of the past and kids are punished if they talk to each other in the classroom outside of narrowly prescribed situations. The kid of social interaction kids get in most schools is completely abnormal by historical standards.

Contrast what goes on in a typical school with, say, a "Sudbury Free school" (one of the better private school models, but still not very common):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"A Sudbury school is a type of school, usually for the K-12 age range, where students have complete responsibility for their own education, and the school is run by direct democracy in which students and staff are equals.[1] Students individually decide what to do with their time, and tend to learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather than through coursework. There is no predetermined educational syllabus, prescriptive curriculum or standardized instruction. This is a form of democratic education. Daniel Greenberg, one of the founders of the original Sudbury Model school, writes that the two things that distinguish a Sudbury Model school are that everyone - adults and children - are treated equally and that there is no authority other than that granted by the consent of the governed.[2]"

Although even within that free school model, there are issues related to forcing a kid to be somewhere other than their local community every day. A free school may also not be a great match for more introverted children.

As I write in that essay on post-scarcity unschooling, quoting a job advertisement for truant officers suggesting truancy can lead to violent crime or a least an unsuccessful unproductive life: "See, that is the false choice -- suggesting you either confine a child to prison or they will commit their first violent crime and have to be imprisoned. That is a very dim view of human nature, neighborhoods and families. Yet, it is a self justifying view, in part destroying the very neighborhood fabric it claims to be defending. So, we are left with streets that are safe because there are no people on them. We have successfully destroyed the village in order to save it, using compulsory schooling instead of napalm."

Or in this case, you suggest unless kids are put in prison for their formative years they will become "freaks".

Given thousands of years of human history raising kids at home and in villages and towns (and yes, cities), doesn't the historical evidence suggest that it would more likely be the other way around? Especially when compulsory schooling was designed precisely to produce cannon fodder for Prussian wars? Which then coincided with two world wars originating out of the Prussian area?

See also Alfie Kohn on bad effects of extrinsic rewards for learning, competition with other kids, and also of grading:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/punis...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/conte...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...

As John Taylor Gatto points out, between school kids and teachers a

Considering compulsory schooling is a relatively recent invention since Prussian times (intended to subordinate almost all citizens into a military hierarchy), how did children learn to interact with other people of all ages before the 1800s?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Hint -- it takes a village to raise child -- and village life is not what kids experience in a typical school (public or private).

To begin with, when do kids in a typical school (public or private) actually get to interact with other kids in a playful loosely-structured way with only occasional adult supervision or intervention like in the past? As opposed to interacting with other people as if they were in a tightly-guarded prison? For many schools, outdoor play and unstructured recess is a thing of the past and kids are punished if they talk to each other in the classroom outside of narrowly prescribed situations. The kid of social interaction kids get in most schools is completely abnormal by historical standards.

Contrast what goes on in a typical school with, say, a "Sudbury Free school" (one of the better private school models, but still not very common):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"A Sudbury school is a type of school, usually for the K-12 age range, where students have complete responsibility for their own education, and the school is run by direct democracy in which students and staff are equals.[1] Students individually decide what to do with their time, and tend to learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather than through coursework. There is no predetermined educational syllabus, prescriptive curriculum or standardized instruction. This is a form of democratic education. Daniel Greenberg, one of the founders of the original Sudbury Model school, writes that the two things that distinguish a Sudbury Model school are that everyone - adults and children - are treated equally and that there is no authority other than that granted by the consent of the governed.[2]"

Although even within that free school model, there are issues related to forcing a kid to be somewhere other than their local community every day. A free school may also not be a great match for more introverted children.

As I write in that essay on post-scarcity unschooling, quoting a job advertisement for truant officers suggesting truancy can lead to violent crime or a least an unsuccessful unproductive life: "See, that is the false choice -- suggesting you either confine a child to prison or they will commit their first violent crime and have to be imprisoned. That is a very dim view of human nature, neighborhoods and families. Yet, it is a self justifying view, in part destroying the very neighborhood fabric it claims to be defending. So, we are left with streets that are safe because there are no people on them. We have successfully destroyed the village in order to save it, using compulsory schooling instead of napalm."

Or in this case, you suggest unless kids are put in prison for their formative years they will become "freaks".

Given thousands of years of human history raising kids at home and in villages and towns (and yes, cities), doesn't the historical evidence suggest that it would more likely be the other way around? Especially when compulsory schooling was designed precisely to produce cannon fodder for Prussian wars? Which then coincided with two world wars originating out of the Prussian area?

See also Alfie Kohn on bad effects of extrinsic rewards for learning, competition with other kids, and also of grading:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/punis...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/conte...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...

As John Taylor Gatto points out, between school kids and teachers a

I'm lazy and don't want to get up in the morning. Why should I continue working when I could quit and get paid less?

I'm lazy and don't want to get up in the morning. Why should I continue working when I could quit and live on welfare or UBI?
The problem is completely analogous.

People who only work because they fear starving or not being able to pay for their houses generally do bad work. More generally, extrinsic reward tends to destroy creativity. So not only does a weak reward scheme not hurt, but a strong reward scheme may be actively counterproductive.

What motivates people is autonomy, increasing mastery, and a sense of purpose. See Dan Pink's talk:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Or look at the writing of Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/punis...
http://www.shareintl.org/archi...
" "We need competition in order to survive."
"Life is boring without competition."
"It is competition that gives us meaning in life."
These words written by American college students capture a sentiment that runs through the heart of the USA and appears to be spreading throughout the world. To these students, competition is not simply something one does, it is the very essence of existence. When asked to imagine a world without competition, they can foresee only rising prices, declining productivity and a general collapse of the moral order. Some truly believe we would cease to exist were it not for competition.
Alfie Kohn, author of No contest: the case against competition, disagrees completely. He argues that competition is essentially detrimental to every important aspect of human experience; our relationships, self-esteem, enjoyment of leisure, and even productivity would all be improved if we were to break out of the pattern of relentless competition. Far from being idealistic speculation, his position is anchored in hundreds of research studies and careful analysis of the primary domains of competitive interaction. For those who see themselves assisting in a transition to a less competitive world, Kohn's book will be an invaluable resource."

Progress or "advancement" in what direction is another good question to ask yourself. Is it a good idea to more quickly advance off a cliff? For example, the World Wide Web might have been a much better place and the web browser might have been a much better tool if not for all the effort various groups have put into undermining web standards for private gain (for example, Microsoft in the early years). The problem with a lot of competition is it encourages people to use power (including political power) to private gains while socializing costs, and that can be very costly and unpleasant overall for a community. Once can have *diversity* without explicit *competition*. What it takes is something like a basic income, easy subsistence production, free-or-cheap-to-the-user planned infrastructure, or some other means of ensuring people have the time and resources to create.

If our culture was as aggressive as the Romans, maybe the Earth would be a nuclear wasteland by now? Although, as "I, Claudius" suggests, a lot of Roman aggression was turned in on itself at some point, with political murders including of the leaders who might otherwise have made Rome a better place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
"During the prosperous reign of Augustus, he is plagued by personal losses as his favored heirs, Marcellus, Marcus Agrippa, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, die at varying points. Claudius reveals that these untimely deaths are all the machinations of Augustus' cold wife Livia, who seeks to make her son Tiberius succeed Augustus. ... As Tiberius becomes more hated, he increasingly relies on his Praetorian Captain Sejanus who is able to make Tiberius fear Germanicus' wife Agrippina and his own son Castor. Sejanus secretly plots with Livilla to usurp the monarchy by poisoning Castor and beginning to remove any ally of Agrippina and her sons. ... Caligula soon loses his mind, after recovering from

What motivates people is autonomy, increasing mastery, and a sense of purpose. See Dan Pink's talk:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Or look at the writing of Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/punis...
http://www.shareintl.org/archi...
" "We need competition in order to survive."
"Life is boring without competition."
"It is competition that gives us meaning in life."
These words written by American college students capture a sentiment that runs through the heart of the USA and appears to be spreading throughout the world. To these students, competition is not simply something one does, it is the very essence of existence. When asked to imagine a world without competition, they can foresee only rising prices, declining productivity and a general collapse of the moral order. Some truly believe we would cease to exist were it not for competition.
Alfie Kohn, author of No contest: the case against competition, disagrees completely. He argues that competition is essentially detrimental to every important aspect of human experience; our relationships, self-esteem, enjoyment of leisure, and even productivity would all be improved if we were to break out of the pattern of relentless competition. Far from being idealistic speculation, his position is anchored in hundreds of research studies and careful analysis of the primary domains of competitive interaction. For those who see themselves assisting in a transition to a less competitive world, Kohn's book will be an invaluable resource."

Progress or "advancement" in what direction is another good question to ask yourself. Is it a good idea to more quickly advance off a cliff? For example, the World Wide Web might have been a much better place and the web browser might have been a much better tool if not for all the effort various groups have put into undermining web standards for private gain (for example, Microsoft in the early years). The problem with a lot of competition is it encourages people to use power (including political power) to private gains while socializing costs, and that can be very costly and unpleasant overall for a community. Once can have *diversity* without explicit *competition*. What it takes is something like a basic income, easy subsistence production, free-or-cheap-to-the-user planned infrastructure, or some other means of ensuring people have the time and resources to create.

If our culture was as aggressive as the Romans, maybe the Earth would be a nuclear wasteland by now? Although, as "I, Claudius" suggests, a lot of Roman aggression was turned in on itself at some point, with political murders including of the leaders who might otherwise have made Rome a better place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
"During the prosperous reign of Augustus, he is plagued by personal losses as his favored heirs, Marcellus, Marcus Agrippa, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, die at varying points. Claudius reveals that these untimely deaths are all the machinations of Augustus' cold wife Livia, who seeks to make her son Tiberius succeed Augustus. ... As Tiberius becomes more hated, he increasingly relies on his Praetorian Captain Sejanus who is able to make Tiberius fear Germanicus' wife Agrippina and his own son Castor. Sejanus secretly plots with Livilla to usurp the monarchy by poisoning Castor and beginning to remove any ally of Agrippina and her sons. ... Caligula soon loses his mind, after recovering from

What motivates people is autonomy, increasing mastery, and a sense of purpose. See Dan Pink's talk:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us "
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Or look at the writing of Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/artic...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/punis...
http://www.shareintl.org/archi...
" "We need competition in order to survive."
"Life is boring without competition."
"It is competition that gives us meaning in life."
These words written by American college students capture a sentiment that runs through the heart of the USA and appears to be spreading throughout the world. To these students, competition is not simply something one does, it is the very essence of existence. When asked to imagine a world without competition, they can foresee only rising prices, declining productivity and a general collapse of the moral order. Some truly believe we would cease to exist were it not for competition.
Alfie Kohn, author of No contest: the case against competition, disagrees completely. He argues that competition is essentially detrimental to every important aspect of human experience; our relationships, self-esteem, enjoyment of leisure, and even productivity would all be improved if we were to break out of the pattern of relentless competition. Far from being idealistic speculation, his position is anchored in hundreds of research studies and careful analysis of the primary domains of competitive interaction. For those who see themselves assisting in a transition to a less competitive world, Kohn's book will be an invaluable resource."

Progress or "advancement" in what direction is another good question to ask yourself. Is it a good idea to more quickly advance off a cliff? For example, the World Wide Web might have been a much better place and the web browser might have been a much better tool if not for all the effort various groups have put into undermining web standards for private gain (for example, Microsoft in the early years). The problem with a lot of competition is it encourages people to use power (including political power) to private gains while socializing costs, and that can be very costly and unpleasant overall for a community. Once can have *diversity* without explicit *competition*. What it takes is something like a basic income, easy subsistence production, free-or-cheap-to-the-user planned infrastructure, or some other means of ensuring people have the time and resources to create.

If our culture was as aggressive as the Romans, maybe the Earth would be a nuclear wasteland by now? Although, as "I, Claudius" suggests, a lot of Roman aggression was turned in on itself at some point, with political murders including of the leaders who might otherwise have made Rome a better place.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
"During the prosperous reign of Augustus, he is plagued by personal losses as his favored heirs, Marcellus, Marcus Agrippa, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, die at varying points. Claudius reveals that these untimely deaths are all the machinations of Augustus' cold wife Livia, who seeks to make her son Tiberius succeed Augustus. ... As Tiberius becomes more hated, he increasingly relies on his Praetorian Captain Sejanus who is able to make Tiberius fear Germanicus' wife Agrippina and his own son Castor. Sejanus secretly plots with Livilla to usurp the monarchy by poisoning Castor and beginning to remove any ally of Agrippina and her sons. ... Caligula soon loses his mind, after recovering from

Students can be motivated in other ways than by tests and grades. Using tests and grades really teaches kids that they should dislike school.

Alfie Kohn makes The Case Against Grades.

A favorite passage:

although teachers may be required to submit a final grade, there's no requirement for them to decide unilaterally what that grade will be. Thus, students can be invited to participate in that process either as a negotiation (such that the teacher has the final say) or by simply permitting students to grade themselves. If people find that idea alarming, it's probably because they realize it creates a more democratic classroom, one in which teachers must create a pedagogy and a curriculum that will truly engage students rather than allow teachers to coerce them into doing whatever they're told. In fact, negative reactions to this proposal ("It's unrealistic!") point up how grades function as a mechanism for controlling students rather than as a necessary or constructive way to report information about their performance.

I know that I'm individual. I've learned foreign languages. I use my methods, which included grammar, pronunciation, and literature. But I don't generalize from myself to assume that anyone else should learn my way. Why do teachers? For control.

I think Alfie Kohn says it best in The Case Against Grades:

although teachers may be required to submit a final grade, thereâ(TM)s no requirement for them to decide unilaterally what that grade will be. Thus, students can be invited to participate in that process either as a negotiation (such that the teacher has the final say) or by simply permitting students to grade themselves. If people find that idea alarming, itâ(TM)s probably because they realize it creates a more democratic classroom, one in which teachers must create a pedagogy and a curriculum that will truly engage students rather than allow teachers to coerce them into doing whatever theyâ(TM)re told. In fact, negative reactions to this proposal (âoeItâ(TM)s unrealistic!â) point up how grades function as a mechanism for controlling students rather than as a necessary or constructive way to report information about their performance.

So, first, get rid of grades. Teach like Socrates, without tuition or tests. Just knowledge exploration, where Socrates is often just as confused at the end of the dialog as his interlocutor.

Knowledge transmission is fundamentally not capitalist or economic in nature. Teachers often gain new knowledge in the act of giving knowledge away. Conservation laws don't apply to knowledge or education.

Public schools should not credential, but simply teach. Good students can be recognized by how much they help others, by how little help they need, by how fast they solve problems. You don't need grades to assess knowledge. Eliminate grades, and the incentive to cheat is gone.

See Alfie Kohn, The Case Against Grades, for more.

Correlation does not prove causation, but interesting paper none-the-less reading the summary: "Copyright and Creativity -- Evidence from Italian Operas"
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/pa...

But even if it was true, should most of humanity be denied access to most of human knowledge via the internet that could otherwise be available right now (like via Google Books) so we might get a few more operas and other such thing?

Beside, current research (even by the US Federal Reserve) shows reward is not motivator for creative works (or sometimes even has a negative correlation of causing artists to just rehash more of the same old thing). Lot of studies are cited in these works by Alfie Kohn and Dan Pink to support my point:
"Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes"
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books...
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Also: "Studies Find Reward Often No Motivator: Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if task is done for gain"
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy...

A better answer to the issue of people having enough time to do quality work (including learning to do it) is to have a "basic income" for everyone (so, for example, monthly Social Security payments in the USA from birth, not just for those 65 and older).
http://www.basicincome.org/bie...

There are plenty of reasons copyrights stifle creativity these days, because artists can't easily remix.
https://gigaom.com/2011/12/12/...

Most, as in 99%+ (my guess), of artistic people are only held back by copyright, because very, very few people can make a living at licensing creative works as authors or composers or whatever, but they instead generally have to pay for access to contemporary novels and music and such. Some of that is discussed here:
http://www.thepublicdomain.org...

As the video suggests, "incentives" don't really make much of a difference to motivation. However, you make some good points about value to a company of an experienced employee (whether motivated much or not), and it is true, if you want to hang onto mostly unmotivated employees a little longer, then incentives may help keep them from being unmotivated elsewhere. And it is true that a lot can get done by a lot of unmotivated employees -- just not stuff that is generally that creative or innovative. But that sort of advice is kind of like giving advice on what orders the Captian should give while the Titanic is sinking -- it is not advice about how to keep the Titanic from sinking or build a ship that is truly unsinkable.

It is true though that you have to, as Dan Pink says, "take money off the table" by paying your staff enough that money is not an issue. Related (though no doubt there are nuances, like $75K in Silicon Valley is generally poverty wages requiring long commutes):
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/20...
"The study, which analyzed Gallup surveys of 450,000 Americans in 2008 and 2009, suggested that there were two forms of happiness: day-to-day contentment (emotional well-being) and overall "life assessment," which means broader satisfaction with one's place in the world. While a higher income didn't have much impact on day-to-day contentment, it did boost people's "life assessment." Now we have more details from the study, conducted by the Princeton economist Angus Deaton and famed psychologist Daniel Kahneman. It turns out there is a specific dollar number, or income plateau, after which more money has no measurable effect on day-to-day contentment. The magic income: $75,000 a year. As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness."

There are some other practical things, like onsite day care or extended maternity leave that could make a big difference for working parents, especially working mothers.

See also:
" Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes"
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books...
" Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train the family pet.
In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm. Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.
Drawing from hundreds of studies, Kohn demonstrates that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives. Programs that use rewards to change people's behavior are similarly ineffective over the long run. Promising goodies to children for good behavior can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. In fact, the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we're bribing them to do. Rewards turn play into work, and work into drudgery.
Step by step, Kohn marshals research and logic to prove that pay-for-performance plans cannot work; the more an organization relies on incentives, the worse things get. Parents and teachers who care about helping students to learn, meanwhile, should be doing everything possible to help them forget that grades exist. Even praise can become a verbal bribe that gets kids hooked on our approval.
Rewards and punishments are just two sides of the same coin -- and the coin doe

See Dan Pink's presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

So, much of the premise of differential rewards to spur innovation is flawed (even though it does apply to some extent for hard manual labor not involving much creativity). What Dan Pink says motivates people most to work in creative innovative directions is a sense of purpose, a sense of autonomy, and an increasing sense of mastery.

Also on that theme by Alfie Kohn:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books...
http://www.amazon.com/No-Conte...

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
"The book argues that there are "pernicious effects that inequality has on societies: eroding trust, increasing anxiety and illness, (and) encouraging excessive consumption".[5] It claims that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.[1] The book contains graphs that are available online.[6]"

And see also, on how the logic of diminishing returns in economics got replaced by the concept of "Pareto efficient":
"Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal"
http://www.amazon.com/Economic...

Also on the social dynamics and mythology related to all this: http://conceptualguerilla.com/...

You made a good presentation of the roots of the better ideas behind capitalism. But somehow along the way, as power accumulated and corrupted our main social institutions in the USA and elsewhere, those ideas got stretched into neoliberalism... Here is a conceptual video on what happens as those neoliberal ideas expand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

For some comic relief (and a bit more insight), the first novel in a futuristic sci-fi series featuring cybertanks fighting against neoliberalism (especially in the third novel in the series started by the Chronicles of Old Guy by Timothy Gawne):
http://www.amazon.com/The-Chro...

As long as we have an economy based mostly on exchange and capitalism, and as automation takes more and more jobs, it seems like we would need a basic income to make the system more humane and also keep it going by creating demand. So, to do that, we can just reduce the age of the first Social Security payment from age 65 to age 0, and fund that via taxes and fees royalties on use of government assets (like the Alaska Permanent Fund) and so on. However, long term, as I say on my website, we will likely see a mix of advanced subsistence production (3D printers, solar cells, Mr. Fusion), an expanded gift economy (FOSS, Freecycle), better democratic planning (like via the internet), and an exchange economy softened by a basic income.

http://www.thecaseagainsthomew...
"Bavo to Bennett and Kalish for having the courage to say what many of us know to be true! By connecting the dots in new ways, they make a strong case against the value of homework. This book serves as an indispensable tool for parents who want to get serious about changing homework practices in their schools."

Grades are bad too:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teach...

As is compulsory schooling in general (which could be replaced by a basic income from birth so parents can hire tutors, pay for private school, go on trips, and/or homeschool/unschool):
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com...
http://www.pdfernhout.net/towa...

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teach...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books...
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com...
http://www.the-open-boat.com/G...
http://www.newciv.org/whole/sc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

So much of the discussion of schooling misses the deeper point about the horrible legacy of "Prussian Schooling" and the enormous cost of it in diminished psyches. More humane lternatives are possible.

From the first link above:
-------
"From Degrading to De-Grading"
"You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
    Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading. ...
1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. ...
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. ...
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. ...
4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective. ...
5. Grades distort the curriculum. ...
6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning. ...
7. Grades encourage cheating. ...
8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students. ...
9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other. ...
    Most of us are directly acquainted with at least some of these disturbing consequences of grades, yet we continue to reduce students to letters or numbers on a regular basis. Perhaps we've become inured to these effects and take them for granted. This is the way it's always been, we assume, and the way it has to be. It's rather like people who have spent all their lives in a terribly polluted city and have come to assume that this is just the way air looks - and that it's natural to be coughing all the time.
    Oddly, when educators are shown that it doesn't have to be this way, some react with suspicion instead of relief. They want to know why you're making trouble, or they assert that you're exaggerating the negative effects of grades (it's really not so bad - cough, cough), or they dismiss proven alternatives to grading on the grounds that our school could never do what others schools have done.
    The practical difficulties of abolishing letter grades are real. But the key question is whether those difficulties are seen as problems to be solved or as excuses for perpetuating the status quo. The logical response to the arguments and data summarized here is to say: "Good heavens! If even half of this is true, then it's imperative we do whatever we can, as soon as we can, to phase out traditional grading." Yet many people begin and end with the problems of implementation, responding to all this evidence by saying, in effect, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we'll never get rid of grades because . . .""

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teach...
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books...
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com...
http://www.the-open-boat.com/G...
http://www.newciv.org/whole/sc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

So much of the discussion of schooling misses the deeper point about the horrible legacy of "Prussian Schooling" and the enormous cost of it in diminished psyches. More humane lternatives are possible.

From the first link above:
-------
"From Degrading to De-Grading"
"You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.
    Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading. ...
1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. ...
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. ...
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. ...
4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective. ...
5. Grades distort the curriculum. ...
6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning. ...
7. Grades encourage cheating. ...
8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students. ...
9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other. ...
    Most of us are directly acquainted with at least some of these disturbing consequences of grades, yet we continue to reduce students to letters or numbers on a regular basis. Perhaps we've become inured to these effects and take them for granted. This is the way it's always been, we assume, and the way it has to be. It's rather like people who have spent all their lives in a terribly polluted city and have come to assume that this is just the way air looks - and that it's natural to be coughing all the time.
    Oddly, when educators are shown that it doesn't have to be this way, some react with suspicion instead of relief. They want to know why you're making trouble, or they assert that you're exaggerating the negative effects of grades (it's really not so bad - cough, cough), or they dismiss proven alternatives to grading on the grounds that our school could never do what others schools have done.
    The practical difficulties of abolishing letter grades are real. But the key question is whether those difficulties are seen as problems to be solved or as excuses for perpetuating the status quo. The logical response to the arguments and data summarized here is to say: "Good heavens! If even half of this is true, then it's imperative we do whatever we can, as soon as we can, to phase out traditional grading." Yet many people begin and end with the problems of implementation, responding to all this evidence by saying, in effect, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, but we'll never get rid of grades because . . .""

Why force people to learn? Let them approach a subject when they are interested, motivated, and they will learn much more effectively. The drop-out rate is irrelevant; you can learn something from the first classes, which often state the basic principles or axioms of the subject. Sometimes it takes a while to understand those; perhaps you disagree with them and don't want to continue until you figure out why precisely.

Alfie Kohn writes in http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/tcag.htm :

Thus, students can be invited to participate in that process either as a negotiation (such that the teacher has the final say) or by simply permitting students to grade themselves. If people find that idea alarming, it’s probably because they realize it creates a more democratic classroom, one in which teachers must create a pedagogy and a curriculum that will truly engage students rather than allow teachers to coerce them into doing whatever they’re told.

He's making a case against grades; but the more general concern is about motivating students, not coercing them. Free MOOCs provide an opportunity to figure out how to use technology to make a class all things to all students; if some students decide they've learned enough, for now, after the first class, so what? They can come back to the subject later, when they're motivated.

And that is why schools-as-we-know-them are rapidly becoming obsolete, if they every made any sense at all. See my essay:
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html

And for general background:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
http://johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue.htm
http://www.thewaronkids.com/
http://www.holtgws.com/growingwithoutsc.html
http://www.ecovaproject.org/education.htm
http://archives.greenmoneyjournal.com/article.mpl?newsletterid=21&articleid=195
http://www.patfarenga.com/

I could go on for dozens or even hundreds more links...

As Gatto wrote about the big problem with this "system" we call "public schooling" (contrast with "public libraries") is that:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"Before you can reach a point of effectiveness in defending your own children or your principles against the assault of blind social machinery, you have to stop conspiring against yourself by attempting to negotiate with a set of abstract principles and rules which, by its nature, cannot respond. Under all its disguises, that is what institutional schooling is, an abstraction which has escaped its handlers. Nobody can reform it. First you have to realize that human values are the stuff of madness to a system; in systems-logic the schools we have are already the schools the system needs; the only way they could be much improved is to have kids eat, sleep, live, and die there."

"Nothing sharpens your mind as much as having to discuss/cooperate/compete with other very bright minds"

Thus we have Slashdot; I have learned so much from it over the past twelve or so years. :-)

BTW, Alfie Kohn on "Competition versus Excellence":
http://www.alfiekohn.org/miscellaneous/cve.htm
"In a comprehensive review of 245 classroom studies that found a significant achievement difference between cooperative and competitive environments, David Johnson and Roger Johnson of the University of Minnesota reported that 87 percent of the time the advantage went to the cooperative approach. That result concerns bottom-line learning and doesn't even include the enhanced ability to get along with other people. In visiting classrooms where cooperative learning is used, I like to ask students to describe the experience in their own words. One ten-year-old boy thought a moment and replied, "It's like you have four brains." By contrast, a competitor's single brain often shuts off when given no reason to learn except to triumph over his or her classmates."

"The student in this case didn't exactly make the best of decisions: With tensions high, it would probably be better to not be drawing guns or give any potential "danger indicators" to school officials, etc."

For adults, your point might make sense. but kids may process information like the tragedy in CT by role-playing through it. That is described in a book called "The War Play Dilemma" by by Diane E. Levin and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, which I review here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/the-war-play-dilemma.html
"The "dilemma" is about a fundamental conflict parents face when dealing with war play. On the one hand, most parents want children to grow and develop by working through developmental issues (like learning to deal with conflict, learning self-control, and learning respect for themselves and others through play, including play involving conflicts as hands-on-learning). On the other hand, most parents want to convey social values related to their beliefs about violence and war as ways to solve social conflicts. The authors clearly do not say all war play is bad, and they also point out that even a cracker can be turned into a gun with one bite. The authors say there are no easy general answers to this dilemma in all situations, but provide a range of options. ..."

People who draw may often draw what is on their mind. With 24X7 news coverage of the tragedy, how could guns not be on the minds of a lot of kids?

Beyond all the other insightful comments people have made here, this NJ situation shows the fundamental lack of understanding that is so prevalent in so many schools about how children really learn and grow.

Better information on how kids learn:
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0fg73WnLWQ
http://www.holtgws.com/howchildrenlearn.html
http://www.alfiekohn.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U
http://www.ted.com/talks/gever_tulley_on_5_dangerous_things_for_kids.html
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/prologue.htm

Marshall Brain and James P. Hogan are two authors worth reading on these topics.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary

Martin Ford also has a great website in this area:
http://econfuture.wordpress.com/

Lots more links and stuff on my site: http://www.pdfernhout.net/

And here are copies of some emails I sent to Ray Kurzweil over the years (someone else made a copy of them here) trying to get him to think more deeply about evolutionary and social issues related to the singularity:
http://heybryan.org/fernhout/

Basically, I tried to say much like what you are saying. Our trajectory coming out of any singularity may have a lot of influence on our path coming out of one. It just seems like common sense that more compassion, community, and cooperation now might make a big differnece later. See also Alfie Kohn's work:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm
"No Contest, which has been stirring up controversy since its publication in 1986, stands as the definitive critique of competition. Drawing from hundreds of studies, Alfie Kohn eloquently argues that our struggle to defeat each other -- at work, at school, at play, and at home -- turns all of us into losers."

My sig below sums up my years of thinking on all this.

" If you don't like it, you march yourself down to the registers office, and un-enroll and get your money back."

Can we also complain about it and point out why we think teachers keeping a closed fist around knowledge is counterproductive?

http://www.alfiekohn.org/index.php

From "The Case Against Grades":

In the 1980s and '90s, educational psychologists systematically studied the effects of grades. As I've reported elsewhere (Kohn, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c), when students from elementary school to college who are led to focus on grades are compared with those who aren't, the results support three robust conclusions:

* Grades tend to diminish students' interest in whatever they're learning.
[...]
* Grades create a preference for the easiest possible task.
[...]
* Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking.
[...]
It follows that all assessment must be done carefully and sparingly lest students become so concerned about their achievement (how good they are at doing something -- or, worse, how their performance compares to others') that they're no longer thinking about the learning itself.

According to Punished by Rewards , which cites many studies, it can also be counterproductive, especially in work that requires creativity or teamwork. The only creativity it appears to encourage long term is cheating. It's short term productive at best and long term counterproductive at worst (here's looking at you Wall Street).

"Carrot AND stick."

Depends on the context, see Dan Pink on motivation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Or Alfie Kohn's "Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes":
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

"There's still a minimum level of money you have to pay someone so that they are willing to be creative for you. Although after a certain point, most people are not motivated by money anymore, so throwing more of it at them leads to diminishing returns."

Good points, thank. So often there is a confusion between the notion of money (or other resources) as *enabling* creativity as opposed to money as *rewarding* creativity. And as you say there, the issue with money becomes getting people to be creative for *you* (where it is true, the concept of money can help), as opposed to maximally creative for themselves or the world, where it turns out money tends to hurt (beyond, of course, the fact that people who are deprived often find their creativity directed at best only to survival).

Example:
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/02/06/how-to-build-a-career-as-an-artist/
"The starving artist routine is total bullshit. I know because I did it. Once you know that you are not going to make rent, you can't really make art. Because your sense of self-preservation insists that your brain focus on the possibility that you will be out on the street. Your brain cannot stop solving that problem long enough to solve the problem of what is truth and beauty. Here are some things I did while I was becoming a writer: I ate only bagels because I didn't have enough money for anything else and then I got anemic and had to go to the doctor but I didn't have health insurance so I had to lie and say I did in order to get the iron pills I needed so that I didn't pass out from exhaustion the moment I woke up in the morning. Believe me, I was not making great art during this period."

Yet:
"Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes"
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

So, yes, as far as creativity is concerned, a money based society (where all food is under "lock and key" like Daniel Quinn call it) can use money to say what people will mostly be creative about, accepting that they will in general be much less creative overall if controlled that way. Even self-employed artists often fall into a rut where they keep making more of the same stuff that paid well last time, rather than trying to reach towards new ideas like they might have done before they were financially successful.

And in general, creativity may not be very important to our current system:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"I'll bring this down to earth. Try to see that an intricately subordinated industrial/commercial system has only limited use for hundreds of millions of self-reliant, resourceful readers and critical thinkers. In an egalitarian, entrepreneurially based economy of confederated families like the one the Amish have or the Mondragon folk in the Basque region of Spain, any number of self-reliant people can be accommodated usefully, but not in a concentrated command-type economy like our own. Where on earth would they fit? In a great fanfare of moral fervor some years back, the Ford Motor Company opened the world's most productive auto engine plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. It insisted on hiring employees with 50 percent more school training than the Mexican norm of six years, but as time passed Ford removed its requirements and began to hire school dropouts, training them quite well in four to twelve weeks. The hype that education is essential to robot-like work was quietly abandoned. Our economy has no adequate outlet of expression for its artists, dancers, poets, painters, farmers, filmmakers, wildcat business people, handcraft workers, whiskey makers, intellectuals, or a thousand other useful human enterprises--no outlet except corporate work or fringe slots on the periphery of things. Unless you do "creative" work the company way, you run afoul of a h

"Absent the capitalist system of letting the market decide which products are desirable, how do you determine which ebooks deserve to succeed? How do you determine how much to reimburse the author? These are the fatal flaws with hard-core socialism / communism: you have no reliable, accurate way to determine the best way to allocate resources."

J. K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter while she was on the dole.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3666215/From-the-dole-to-Hollywood.html

How do you explain the success of "free software" or the success of the Debian project that is coordinated through emails and chat messages instead of dollars? What often determines what succeeds and is maintained is by what people think is useful (not who has money to pay for it).

Why do people need to be "reimbursed"? People can be motivated by the work itself:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

It turns out creativity often suffers if it is remunerated.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

Further, why do we have to keep innovating like crazy if we never get to rest after all that innovation is done? Haven't we made life easy enough that we can get back to spending time with family, friends, hobbies, contemplating nature or the infinite, being a good citizen, and so on?

Most work just exists to preserve (through "guarding") the work system itself; see:
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.whywork.org/

What are you going to propose to do when robots and AIs can do much of the work? How are you going to earn a living?
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html
http://www.pdfernhout.net/

(Posting AC as I have 15 mod points in the discussion, including modding your post up because it does raise an important point. :-)

That's why good multiple choice tests have ringer answers to short circuit this kind of logic. REALLY good multiple choice tests have the incorrect answers being the *right* answer for different mistakes. If there is an answer that's correct for (47 * 75) - 25, you know you need to get that kid glasses.

That's why making multiple choice tests (and grading them) is so frigging difficult to do very well. To do it completely perfectly you need to be able to predict all possible incorrect interpretations and be sure that none of your "wrong" answers are "right" in a way that you would want to give points for.

Of course, before you go through all that effort (or any formal evaluation for that matter) you should probably figure out exactly why you want to do the testing in the first place. If the point is to use the evaluation to assist in the learning then maybe time would be better spent by having the students create tests for each other and then go over them together in groups, or something "radical" like that. It is not clear that formal grades and exam scores out of 100 give any real benefit to the learning process.

Here is an old article by Alfie Kohn about reasons to question the whole process of formal grading:

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/grading.htm

GRADING

The Issue Is Not How but Why

By Alfie Kohn

Why are we concerned with evaluating how well students are doing? The question of motive, as opposed to method, can lead us to rethink basic tenets of teaching and learning and to evaluate what students have done in a manner more consistent with our ultimate educational objectives. But not all approaches to the topic result in this sort of thoughtful reflection. ....

http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

He has a great article on grading - calling into question most of the reasons we go through the process of assigning grades in the first place.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/grading.htm

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
"... The preceding three results should be enough to cause any conscientious educator to rethink the practice of giving students grades. But as they say on late-night TV commercials, Wait -- there's more. ..."

Key points:
1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself.
2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks.
3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking.
4. Grades aren't valid, reliable, or objective.
5. Grades distort the curriculum.
6. Grades waste a lot of time that could be spent on learning.
7. Grades encourage cheating.
8. Grades spoil teachers' relationships with students.
9. Grades spoil students' relationships with each other.

My partner is just starting an MA teaching program, and she's been ranting a lot about the utter uselessness of grades and standardized testing. Apparently, there are decades of research establishing that standardized tests fail to measure anything but performance on standardized tests, and grades measure little besides conformism, self-discipline, and a lack of creativity. (And self-discipline is not always a good thing -- why are you working so hard at doing things you don't really believe are worth doing?)

My first reaction to the headline was that, if computers are better at grading than people, and we know many of the essays are plagiarized from essays found through Google, why have any human participation in the process?

More seriously, one learns to write well through reading a lot, writing a lot, and occasionally listening to criticism. I think we'd do a better job teaching writing by having students in a class read each other's writing and make comments, and simply pass those who participate and fail those who don't, with no further assessment than that.

Of course, that presumes an education system designed to help people learn to become fully participating members of a community and to lead rich, fulfilling lives. As things stand, mass education systems seem designed to produce some dubious justification for burying most people alive, while selecting a conformist and quiescent minority for middle-class careers.

Thanks for the research (too bad I can't read Japanese for the first link).

I believe the seven year claim; I just would like some more studies that backed it up. About twenty years was long enough in the age of the Pony Express; why should copyrights be longer now rather than shorter? And back then, the USA ignored foreign copyrights and patents, too.

Here is part of the bigger picture, which references research supposedly by the US Federal Reserve showing that performance is worse on tasks requiring creativity if you pay for performance:
    "RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us "
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

See also:
    "Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes"
    http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm
   

There is no current "overpopulation" problem. Almost every human produces more than they consume. See Julian Simon's writings, for example:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/

There is also room for quadrillions of people in space habitats in the solar system built from asteroidal ore, even if the Earth itself might be deemed at some point by some people to have, for aesthetic reasons, too much of a crowd. So, that notion of "overpopulation" is just bunk for an advanced industrial society such as ours. We can produce lots of energy and recycle resources and prevent or clean up pollution if we want to, the problem is that our mainstream economic system does not properly account for externalities. Mainstream economics is broken, not the idea of the more the merrier.

So, since children are net producers over their lives, my your logic, should not parents be credited from society with a lot of money for having a child or raising a child? :-)

You are also pushing some notion of merit pay or punishment fines, trying to somehow turn parenting or being a child into a series of economic calculations. But for any job involving creativity, it turns out that merit pay reduces performance. That is what research really says, despite conventional wisdom that says something else. See:
"RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us "
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Or:
"Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes"
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

So, IMHO, your analysis and recommendations are based on two very flawed assumptions about both resources and motivation. However, your suggestions are in accord with the kind of implicit and explicit curriculum in most schools. So, your plan in itself probably a result of schooling and the ideas about "human nature" it embedded in you, like people do not do things without external motivations.

Also, as you probably believe in a "free market" based on your approach, why should money be forced to be spent through specific places that call themselves schools? Why not let parents decide how best to spend the funds, including by just having the time to spend with kids educating them? Why create and support soulless institutions to raise children instead of prosperous families and healthy neighborhoods?

Related as an alternative if you really want to follow your free market suggestions to perhaps better conclusions:
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
"Some form of free-market system in public schooling is the likeliest place to look for answers, a free market where family schools and small entrepreneurial schools and religious schools and crafts schools and farm schools exist in profusion to compete with government education. I'm trying to describe a free market in schooling just exactly like the one the country had right up until the Civil War, one in which students volunteer for the kind of education that suits them, even if that means self-education. It didn't hurt Benjamin Franklin that I can see."

Although as I believe in the importance of a redistributive "basic income" as a right of citizenship in our society, I still think each citizen is going to need a monthly check to make the free market work, especially as robotics, automation, better design, and voluntary social networks displace more and more paid work. That's another assumption implicit in your analysis -- that there will be "jobs" around for these kids and that productivity as citizens will be measured in monetary terms.
http://en.wik

The truth about homework. I'm not going to claim that iPads are the answer, but the evidence is that homework is not the answer. I'd love to see some actual education reform based on research, rather than anecdotal evidence and folklore.

"I suggest you don't approach singularities."

Probably good advice in general. But, for good or bad, a combination of competition, greed, evolution, curiousity, promises about longevity, pleasure traps, capitalistic short-term profit motive, and other things seem to be driving us towards one or more of them.

Which one of those allegedly "killed the cat" again? :-)
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_killed_the_cat

Apparently though, according to the above link, the original useage was more "worries, cares, and sorrows killed the cat..."

My guess is that how we come out of any singularity may have something to do with the path we take going into one... Do we go into a singularity having alleviated global sorrows with a basic income, a gift economy, demosratic resource-based palnning, and local self-reliance/subsistence through shared open source advanced technology like RepRap 3D printing, organic gardens with heirloom seeds, and even solar panels/cold fusion, or do we go into a singularity with a world at military and economic war with itself using the tools of abundance as weapons to create artificial scarcity?

"Shared joy is doubled joy, shared sorrow is halved sorrow" from an old proverb.

So, if we are falling into a singularity, at least we can give some thought to whether we should be holding each other's hands rather than holding each other's throats as we fall into it... Related:
    http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm
    http://www.tc.columbia.edu/icccr/index.asp?Id=About+the+ICCCR&Info=Founder%3A+Morton+Deutsch

A book that discusses how police get people to do that: http://www.mistakesweremadebutnotbyme.com/

Among other things...

So yes, it is possible a lot of these "confessions" were false, with students just playing it safe.

That book indirectly helps explain why school cling to grades and homework when it has been shown they don't work very well.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

And it helps explain why competition is still so celebrated in schools when there are better ways of helping people learn together:
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/icccr/index.asp?Id=About+the+ICCCR&Info=Founder%3A+Morton+Deutsch
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/9448_AFrameworkforTeachingConflictResolutionintheSchools1987.pdf
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm

A book that discusses how police get people to do that: http://www.mistakesweremadebutnotbyme.com/

Among other things...

So yes, it is possible a lot of these "confessions" were false, with students just playing it safe.

That book indirectly helps explain why school cling to grades and homework when it has been shown they don't work very well.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

And it helps explain why competition is still so celebrated in schools when there are better ways of helping people learn together:
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/icccr/index.asp?Id=About+the+ICCCR&Info=Founder%3A+Morton+Deutsch
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/9448_AFrameworkforTeachingConflictResolutionintheSchools1987.pdf
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm

A book that discusses how police get people to do that: http://www.mistakesweremadebutnotbyme.com/

Among other things...

So yes, it is possible a lot of these "confessions" were false, with students just playing it safe.

That book indirectly helps explain why school cling to grades and homework when it has been shown they don't work very well.
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm
http://www.thecaseagainsthomework.com/
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

And it helps explain why competition is still so celebrated in schools when there are better ways of helping people learn together:
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/icccr/index.asp?Id=About+the+ICCCR&Info=Founder%3A+Morton+Deutsch
http://www.tc.columbia.edu/i/a/document/9448_AFrameworkforTeachingConflictResolutionintheSchools1987.pdf
http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/nc.htm

I sent the professor this: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm

Basically this article show how implicit underlying assumptions the professor is probably making about grading are wrong.

===========

HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE

March 1999

From Degrading to De-Grading

By Alfie Kohn

You can tell a lot about a teacher's values and personality just by asking how he or she feels about giving grades. Some defend the practice, claiming that grades are necessary to "motivate" students. Many of these teachers actually seem to enjoy keeping intricate records of students' marks. Such teachers periodically warn students that they're "going to have to know this for the test" as a way of compelling them to pay attention or do the assigned readings - and they may even use surprise quizzes for that purpose, keeping their grade books at the ready.

Frankly, we ought to be worried for these teachers' students. In my experience, the most impressive teachers are those who despise the whole process of giving grades. Their aversion, as it turns out, is supported by solid evidence that raises questions about the very idea of traditional grading.

Three Main Effects of Grading

Researchers have found three consistent effects of using - and especially, emphasizing the importance of - letter or number grades:

1. Grades tend to reduce students' interest in the learning itself. One of the most well-researched findings in the field of motivational psychology is that the more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward (Kohn, 1993). Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that when students are told they'll need to know something for a test - or, more generally, that something they're about to do will count for a grade - they are likely to come to view that task (or book or idea) as a chore.

While it's not impossible for a student to be concerned about getting high marks and also to like what he or she is doing, the practical reality is that these two ways of thinking generally pull in opposite directions. Some research has explicitly demonstrated that a "grade orientation" and a "learning orientation" are inversely related (Beck et al., 1991; Milton et al., 1986). More strikingly, study after study has found that students -- from elementary school to graduate school, and across cultures - demonstrate less interest in learning as a result of being graded (Benware and Deci, 1984; Butler, 1987; Butler and Nisan, 1986; Grolnick and Ryan, 1987; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Hughes et al., 1985; Kage, 1991; Salili et al., 1976). Thus, anyone who wants to see students get hooked on words and numbers and ideas already has reason to look for other ways of assessing and describing their achievement.

2. Grades tend to reduce students' preference for challenging tasks. Students of all ages who have been led to concentrate on getting a good grade are likely to pick the easiest possible assignment if given a choice (Harter, 1978; Harter and Guzman, 1986; Kage, 1991; Milton et al., 1986). The more pressure to get an A, the less inclination to truly challenge oneself. Thus, students who cut corners may not be lazy so much as rational; they are adapting to an environment where good grades, not intellectual exploration, are what count. They might well say to us, "Hey, you told me the point here is to bring up my GPA, to get on the honor roll. Well, I'm not stupid: the easier the assignment, the more likely that I can give you what you want. So don't blame me when I try to find the easiest thing to do and end up not learning anything."

3. Grades tend to reduce the quality of students' thinking. Given that students may lose interest in what they're learning as a result of grades, it makes sense that they're also apt to think less deeply. One series of studies, for example, found that students given numerical grades were significantly less crea

in some situations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment
"Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people as a result of the behavior of one or more other individuals or groups. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. Historically, occupying powers have used collective punishment to retaliate against and deter attacks on their forces by resistance movements (e.g. destroying whole towns and villages where such attacks have occurred)."

The professor is also trying to get students to mistrust each other with his whole look right, look left, one of these people cheated comment.

Of course, as a professor of management, he probably knows a lot about union busting.

While I don't condone cheating (the students are hurting themselves, to begin with), the students cooperated to do something, and that in itself is a very good thing.

In general, our whole schooling has lots of problems (see John Taylor Gatto and Jeff Schmidt/Disciplined Minds) and more and more students are realizing they are being scammed.

Just take the whole grading thing to begin with -- it is a terrible idea, as explained here by Alfie Kohn:
  http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm