Thursday, January 2, 2014

Barry Schwartz: Our loss of wisdom


9 comments :

  1. Excellent!
    As the Rambam said before:

    פרק ד' שמונה פרקים להרמב"ם:

    המעשים הטובים הם המעשים השווים, הממוצעים בין שני קצוות, אשר שניהם "רעים": הראשון תוספת והשני חסרון. ... והרבה פעמים יטעו בני אדם במעשים האלה, ויחשבו אחד הקצוות - "טוב" ומעלה ממעלות הנפש. ופעמים יחשבו שהקצה הראשון הוא "טוב". כמו שיחשבו את ההעזה מעלה, ויקראו את המעז - "גיבור". וכשיראו מי שהוא בתכלית ההעזה והקפיצה לתוך הסכנות, שמפקיר נפשו למות במתכוון וניצל במקרה, ישבחוהו על זה ויאמרו: "הרי זה גיבור".

    ופעמים יחשבו שהקצה האחרון הוא "טוב". ויאמרו על - פחות הנפש שהוא סבלן, ועל העצל שהוא מסתפק, ועל נעדר הרגשת ההנאה, לגסות טבעו, שהוא זהיר. ועל האופן הזה של הטעות, יחשבו גם את הפזרנות והיהירות למעשים המשובחים. וזה כולו טעות. ולא ישובח באמת אלא הממוצע, ואליו צריך האדם שיכוון. וישקול מעשיו כולם תמיד עד שיתמצעו.

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  2. Thanks for sharing - The eg of the Swiss Nuclear waste storage and then adding the 'lo lishmah ' - the monetary incentive changes thinking is something which Dan Ariely talks about - changing social norms thinking - responsibility, conscience etc to economic norms what's in it for me

    I also liked his idea of rules replacing moral thinking
    He however did not end so well praising KIPP schools which I am sure he is unaware is an eg of 'pedagogy for the poor ' = direct instruction, scripted lessons, focusing on test prep - drill 'n skill - there character education is a combination of rules and incentives to comply to the rules - more about being compliant than moral character development . He spoke about respect for learning - kids need a love of learning to become life long learners - you respect the learning of others

    I shared the Dan Pink Ted Talk . Both talks should be a warning about the dangers involved in the lo lishmah

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  3. Allan - Excuse me for saying that you're dreaming again.

    1) You're still sticking to the false dichotomy of either intrinsic or extrinsic & ignoring Chazal & good research that successfully combine the two. I've debated you on this point in earlier threads & you never bothered answering. (I also sent you a private email today to continue the discussion). Is it "confirmation bias" we see here?

    2) KIPP disproves your whole thesis that extrinsic motivation doesn't work for high-level skills. They claim that "41% of KIPP NYC alumni have earned a B.A. degree, compared to 10% of low-income students nationally". If earning a BA isn't high-level functioning in your book, what is?

    3) Saying KIPP's character education is just rules & incentives is disingenuous. Here's what they write:

    "During each school day, in every lesson and every interaction, we focus as much on developing character – traits such as zest, grit, self-control, hope, love, gratitude, social intelligence and humor – as we do on academic preparation. "

    Are "zest, grit, self-control, hope, love, gratitude, social intelligence and humor" considered "rules" in your book. When will the day come that you'll take the time to actually list YOUR list;

    In past threads I've already mentioned the real problem - Autonomy doesn't usually bring competence, without lots of other efforts.You're muddling GOALS and METHODS, making believe that emotionally appealing goals somehow make up for weak methods. I listed many tools, but you ignored those, too. Why?

    I'm afraid I just wasted 10 minutes of my time, because you probably won't bother answering in detail. On second thought, perhaps some other viewers won't be swayed by the false emotionally appealing arguments of autonomy and elevation of tangential matters into dogma while ignoring truly important things.

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  4. Eric Gurna: Well, one of the founders, of KIPP Charter Schools was at this particular conference, and he was describing his school system and he said that his students go to school nine and a half to ten hours per day, then go home with some homework, and then come to school on Saturdays and over the summer too.

    Alfie Kohn: He should be ashamed of what that does to children’s lives. This superficial criticism of KIPP schools is “that’s not scalable; you’re not going to be able to do that to enough kids and enough schools to make a difference from a public policy perspective,” so any gains they get are atypical and un-replicable. I wouldn’t send a dog to a KIPP school, the way they treat children. First of all, ask the basic questions about what makes for a great school, the kind you’d want to send your kid to. First, how much say do the kids have about what they’re learning? To what extent are they brought in on the decision-making? “How do we want our class to be?” If we need guidelines at a school level, kids learn how to make good decisions, by making decisions.

    Let’s look at KIPP. Even the teachers have limited discretion about what they do. Number two, do they get the kind of great, again, interdisciplinary, team taught, student directed, project based learning, where the point is to understand ideas from the inside out, or is it all about showing better scores on bad tests? Third, when there’s a problem, do you work with kids to try to solve the problem, or do you bribe or threaten them to into mindless obedience? It’s about “work hard, be nice”, and “nice” you get the sense contextually doesn’t mean a compassionate, generous human being, it means “you do what you’re told, you obey authority without questions, or else we publicly humiliate you,” and conversely have a token economy program of the sort that was developed in mental institutions some years ago. The program itself at its core, is anti-child. The fact that they also believe that kids should be subject to it for morehours in the day and the week is unsurprising and more depressing. Are they able to pump up the test scores? I’m willing to stipulate that they can, a lot of people have challenged that, because they also cherry-pick the students and throw out the ones who aren’t going to make them look good. They say they don’t. I’ve read people who have example after example where they do, but let’s assume they don’t. Let’s assume you can turn a school into a factory, which is what this is, where you reward or punish students into doing exactly what they’re told, not questioning authority and becoming thinkers, and you make them stay there long into the night, sacrificing social, moral, emotional, artistic, physical development, all in the service of being socialized to comply with authority and get better at taking test. I am willing to grant that they can raise test scores. If they figured out a way to do this in the usual six hour a day, five day a week thing, I’d still find it horrifying, but the face that they are sucking up a lot of these kid’s childhoods by demanding extra time adds insult to injury.

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  5. Put differently, those kids who can‘t handle the ―choice‖
    to leave their zoned public middle school are driven out of KIPP because either they can‘t uphold the contract, or because they simply decide that 62% more school time, two to three hours of busywork nightly, and the militaristic social climate is just not for them. from http://www.jceps.com/PDFs/07-2-06.pdf

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  6. see what teachers are saying about KIPP

    http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/09/a-former-kipp-teacher-shares-her-story.html

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  7. Ploni,
    Competence is one of the needs that have to be met for intinsic motivation. But when the other needs are not being met autonomy and relatedness you have kids that can read but don't want to read. Competence in most schools is technique without knowing things from the inside out

    I have a response that got lost on the way , that I have decided not to send - I believe in what I say , I believe in the teachers and mentors who guide them and they are the type of teacher I would want for my child. Moving a away from rewards and punishments is a process, but the goal is to use as little as extrinsic motivation as possible and instead facilitate learning and interest in learning without the tools of seduction or compliance .

    You believe in always having both the intrinsic and extrinsic in place - I don't

    It would be better if you would state your position - I would state mine and not what you think it is - you do a good job at distorting what I say - and we can leave at there

    I have spoken to Dr Benzion Sorotzkin and his article - the dangers of rewards speaks for itself - be very careful of the lo lishmah


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  8. Assuming the KIPP was a frum school who here would send their kids there

    Ploni - it boils down to how you would like to treat kids as pet dogs giving them doggie biscuts as rewards and consequences when they step out of line

    I believe that kids need respect and unconditional love for who they are and not for what they do

    Take you Rewards and punishments , I prefer teachers who work hard at relationship and trust rather than control

    Character education the KIPP way is great - great slogans and absolute obedience
    Knowledge is power and power is money and I want more of it

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