Through Twitter, I met an amazing blogger named Larry Ferlazzo. When I traveled to Sacramento earlier this year, I met the real Larry Ferlazzo. Larry is a teacher who makes amazing lists of everything you need to know. He also scours the Internet for everything interesting. I constantly learn from Larry. Once again, he hit the jackpot with this post.
As we know, many of our economists treat test scores as the best and sole measure of learning. They spend inordinate amounts of time in pursuit of the secret of raising test scores, and if they find it, they think they have struck gold.
So the name of their game is to find the right incentive that will cause teachers to teach harder and students to try harder to get those scores up.
They have repeatedly tried bonuses for both teachers and students, but that hasn’t worked.
So now they have a new idea that is beyond disgusting. It is called “loss aversion.”
What that means is that you give students or teachers a reward in advance, and if they don’t raise their scores, you take it away. You make them so fearful that they will lose the reward that they will work harder to raise their scores.
Now, to begin with, there are many reasons why test scores are not the best measure of good education.
But what about the means of inducing the results?
There is something positively disgusting about this approach to human behavior.
As Larry Ferlazzo says, citing the behavioral economist Dan Ariely, teachers and students are not rats in a cage.
There may be even better ways to raise test scores. What if you said to students, “get a higher score on this test, or we will cut off your fingers.” That might raise scores. Or, “get a higher score or you’ll never see your parents again.” Or, “get a higher score or the dean will put your eyes out.”
Once you get into behavior modification, there is no limit to the threats and punishments that can be devised.
But let’s call it what it is: Loathsome. Inhumane. Unethical. Antithetical to the values of a democratic society. Antithetical to decency.
Have these economists no shame?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My father claimed there were four types of leadership: totalitarian (I will stop hurting you if you do this), petty-autocrat (I will hurt you if you don’t do this), paternalist (I did this for you so now you must do this for me), and mutual means (I will do this for you if you do that for me). What you are describing is paternalism of the worst sort. Can the economists not recognize that?
I am not sure this is an example of paternalism. It may belong in a different category.
Yeah… it is certainly Petty-Autocrat as well. Whatever you call it, it amounts to bad leadership.
This methodology doesn’t even really make sense to me. I would think that most people, knowing that keeping the money was contingent upon an arbitrary cut point on a test, wouldn’t spend the money until the test scores came in. Thus, functionally, how would it be different from a bonus paid at the end of the year?
Coincidentally, they are tearing down the statue of Joe Paterno right now. It occurred to me that the scandal at Penn State is largely because of the very things that we are saying are good levers to motivate children. Penn State officials were consistently rewarded with money and trophies. In order to keep their money and trophies, along with the prestige and fame that they had garnered, they resorted to turning a blind eye towards the molestation of children. This is loss aversion at its most repugnant. Yet, in a mark of divine timing, a study comes out positing that the culture of money and trophies is what’s most motivating to our students. Have they learned nothing from the scandal at Penn State?
My reply to Larry’s blog:
“they found that if they gave teachers several thousand dollars at the beginning of the year and told them they’d have to return it if their students didn’t do well on math tests, then students did better on those tests (though it doesn’t appear to me to be significantly better and it didn’t track results past one school year”
What a disgustingly sick research idea. If they came to me and tried to give that money to me I’d have to stick it into them where the sun doesn’t shine, pull it out and then make them eat it-metaphorically speaking of course.
And Larry, you are correct in questioning the ethics of it.
and:
“risk loss aversion” These types of studies and the policies and practices that evolve out of them are concerned mainly about one thing–control. Control in a subtle, most of the times not to be exposed, manipulative fashion. Sorry, but that’s just wrong.
There really is one main thing for “control” in the class, as O. Redding wrote in the song A. Franklin made popular R-E-S-P-E-C-T, respect for the dignity of each individual student through not manipulating them, respecting them as they are not as you “want” them to be.
Diane,
The most disgusting such scoring threat might be, “Turn in your homework or you’ll get a zero.”
And there isn’t an economist in sight (unless that was where the economist got the idea).
Well, I suggest we not “throw babies out with the bath water”. First, this reply is not in any way a defense of “loss aversion”. In fact, I agree with Dr. Ravitch that this (not so) new approach is “Loathsome. Inhumane. Unethical. Antithetical to the values of a democratic society. Antithetical to decency.” I appreciate the humanity Dr. Ravitch displays in recoiling from this patently inhumane approach. However, even if I did recoil from this kind of behavioral “savagery”, I would be hard-pressed, as an educator, to reject if it did, in fact, produce the “desired” results of improving test scores–making the equally dubious assumptions that (a) test scores are good, (b) improving them results in better education, and (c) the problems of disparity and chronically low academic outcomes would in some way be resolved by improving them.
One does not need to go very far to know the futility of “loss aversion”. Evidence abounds in our society and world; more guns and bombs in the hands of the “right people” do not stop murders from happening, more nuclear weapons and the threat of using them do not make countries averse to loss and, more important, do not prevent opposition to those wielding them. The death penalty–the ultimate loss aversion for individuals–does not, has not, will not prevent the inhumanity of violence such “aversion” is designed to deter. More to an economic point, bankers and corporations know the potential criminal “loss” involved in conducting their business through insider-trading, surreptitious ponzi schemes on a national and global economic scale. Their answer? Buy the government–at least its officials in Congress and the White House–and change the laws so that criminal behavior becomes legal; no harm, no foul or, no “loss”, no “aversion”.
I am a behaviorist and Dr. Ravitch’s equating of “behavior modification” with loss aversion is simply inaccurate and too easily dismissed by the “loss averters” in the U.S. DOE and the Obama Administration–not to mention all those bourgeois economists making that argument. All behavior–at least human social behavior–is governed by both the consequences of that behavior and the antecedents that serve to precipitate that behavior (not to mention the science of determining the nature of any particular behavior that one is examining). Just like too many classroom teachers (unfortunately), bourgeois economists, legislators, or poorly educated Harvard law students now Congresspeople, Supreme Court judges, and U.S. Presidents, focus almost exclusively and narrowly even so on the “consequences” for governing a behavior. Anyone who has studied human social behavior for even one or two classes will learn that the precipitators of a behavior have the largest impact on the behavior and its susceptibility for reinforcement (AKA “consequences”). Antecedents are a broad category, which most strict proponents of behavior modification often narrowly confine to the direct antecedents (what happened just before). However, antecedent include a range of levels including social context, learned behavior from the environment (most important, from the closest “adult” influence, see L. Vygotsky, 1989, for a complete elaboration on this point), and the conditions under which a behavior is potentially to exist.
This last point (I know) is a rather long-winded way to say that no one can ever do something that they either never learned or otherwise have no capacity to do. A person confined to a wheelchair (absent technology and changing of rules) is . . . unlikely. . . to be slam dunk a basketball in a (formal game of current regulation) basketball game. You cannot pay a student who is illiterate to pass a grade level reading test, not because they won’t want the money but because their “antecedents” prevent the likelihood of such a response to a stimulus no matter how enticing, or, in this case, how harsh the incentive. This problem is, of course, doubly so to try to induce a teacher who, without any real training in teaching the diverse learners currently populating the majority of schools, to improve test scores for students who have been exposed to multiple iterations of these teachers over their school life in the context (another “antecedent”) of life where the poorest economically suffer the multiple vagaries of historic illiteracy engendered by a society that produces these results over generations.
So, no, “loss aversion” doesn’t work because “losing out” on a test score is probably the mildest of “losses” for too many youth and the only result of such a program will be to hold teachers hostage to their own learned “ignorance” (poor or inadvertent preparation for the students in front of them) and the economic “blackmail” inherent in an incentive to do what they could never hope to do, not in one school year or a million school years.
Personally, I do not believe that the Arne Duncans, President Obama, or the Neanderthal-like Congress (Democrat or Republican) are being conspiratorial in fomenting this kind of ignorance regarding establishing “better” consequences for improving test behavior. I simply do not believe they know. What is unfortunate is that the vast majority of teachers also do not know, not because they are ignorant but because they simply have never had the opportunity to learn or have reinforced the true nature of a behavioral theory of learning. Such a theory focuses on the nature of internal commitment to engage in desired social and academic behavior, how such an internal commitment is learned and reinforced, how it is maintained, and how it is rightfully transferred to new and different contexts and environments (in case you do not recognize this concept, simply stated, “you momma didn’t [or shouldn’t have] raised no fool”). The essence of a behavioral theory of learning is that such internal commitments can be and, for the most part, are learned from external sources including “rewarded” behavior; the key, most important concept being that rewards are NOT consequences, but steps toward reinforcing new and more desired behaviors that are intrinsically established over time. A corollary, of course, is that the longer a particular behavior is reinforced within a person’s environment and with essential influences, the longer it will take to change and the greater the level of external reinforcement will be necessary. Simply put, the longer you have engaged in a particular behavior–desired or undesired–the longer it will take to change. Law enforcement (and Congress) creates a simplistic notion of this observed “law” when they say “the greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior”. This more simplistic notion is, of course, the kernel where most conceptions of learned behavior including “loss aversion” go awry. “They” seem to think that if you just “up the ante” (read change the consequence) behavior will change; make the consequence undesirable will somehow scare children, and teachers, “straight”.
There is a wealth of literature that supports what I have expressed above. In most respects, my “reinforced” learning on this issue is a synthesis, not a verbatim rendering. For an intial reading list I suggest the following and in order of importance:
L. Vygostsky, Thought and Language (1989), edited and translated by A. Kozulin
A. Bandura http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentalpsychology/a/sociallearning.htm
Raichlin, H. on Behavioral Economics
and, of course, B.F. Skinner on Radical Behaviorism [these latter two can be seen as complementary not counterpoised]
You’re right, a tad long winded (like some of mine-ha ha). I read it and agree with some of what you say. But I do take exception to this:
“I would be hard-pressed, as an educator, to reject if it did, in fact, produce the “desired” results of improving test scores–making the equally dubious assumptions that (a) test scores are good, (b) improving them results in better education, and (c) the problems of disparity and chronically low academic outcomes would in some way be resolved by improving them.”
So basically you’re saying that “the ends justify the means”???
That’s how I read it.
Have to get going and pick some tomatoes and make salsa, juice etc. . . So I won’t respond till tonight or early tomorrow. But there is more I would like to comment on.
I look forward to your extended commentary, Duane. However, what I intended to imply is that IF loss aversion were found to work, it would be difficult to argue against it (though, you can be assured I would on the humanitarian grounds of the argument against it).
“Fortunately”, there is absolutely no chance such a “loss aversion” theory will ever work. Positive behavior (read the desired results of improved education or positive human interaction behavior) has never been found to be improved through punishment, of any sort. By definition, punishment (and, make no mistake, loss aversion is a punishment; of the worst kind), is designed to stop a behavior not to teach a new desired behavior. In the worst cases, the desired behavior is assumed already to be in the repertoire of the individual and punishing them for doing the “wrong” thing is believed to produce the “right” thing. Such “loss aversion” therapy neglects (at best) that there is a difference between a “performance deficit” and a “learning deficit”. A performance deficit is one where the individual already knows how to perform but is presumed to choose against performing. A learning deficit is one where the individual has not or not had the opportunity to learn the desired behavior. Thus, if you already know how to spell “cat” but choose not to do so, you would expect how to “teach” the desired behavior would be different than if you knew that the learner has never learned to spell that word (hence, why assessment is often better than simple “testing”). In short, using a political example from Malcolm X when discussing the futility of determining the difference between Democrats and Republicans, “a chicken cannot produce a duck egg”.
In sum, loss aversion will only do what nearly, and unfortunately, every other “bright idea” from proponents of education as an “enterprise” has done; create ever stronger disparities between those who already “know” from those who do not and never had the chance to know. It is not without consequence (:) ) that such disparities line up almost completely with those who have and those who have not.
mtomas3,
Thanks for clarifying the risk aversion aspect and why you would be against it. I concur with your thoughts. Well said. What caught my eye was “hence, why assessment is often better than simple ‘testing'”.
Yes, assessing is a very important aspect of teaching and learning. In the classroom. Teachers are constantly “assessing” what is going on in class, not just with the curriculum aspect, but behavioral, interactive aspects. It is said that teachers make thousands of instantaneous decisions everyday. And those stem from “assessing” the classroom situation. Testing is one small part of this assessment by the teacher. To make it the main focus of the classroom is to belie what teaching and learning is about.
As I understand it, the idea behind loss aversion is that people feel the loss of, say $100 more then they enjoy the gain of $100. What does that have to do with “more guns and bombs in the hands of the “right people” do not stop murders from happening etc.”? It is not relevant to the discussion. The real question is if by framing the situation differently (instead of adding points towards a grade, you subtract points from a possible point total), you can get students to pay more attention.
“The real question is if by framing the situation differently (instead of adding points towards a grade, you subtract points from a possible point total), you can get students to pay more attention.”
No, I don’t believe that framing it that way will get the students to pay more attention because the two “frames” are just the opposite sides of the same coin. One gets to the same result in either frame. It doesn’t make a difference whether adding or subtracting because in the end you still have the problem of the invalidity of grades and the abhorrent practice of sorting and separating out students by a process that illogically attempts to measure/quantify, i.e., grades/points etc. . . the quality that is the teaching and learning process. To confuse and conflate quantity with quality is a logical error and is irrational. Can’t be done logically and in practice it can’t be done accurately. But we still do it = insanity.
Yep, to paraphrase the comedian Lewis Black: “I wish I would have taken LSD when I was younger to help prepare me to get through the insanities/irrealities that are grades, educational standards and standardized testing”
Duane I do not know if framing makes a difference, so that is why trying it out might be useful. The way I understood the original post is that taking points away was unethical and disgusting. You are making the argument that all evaluation, or at least the grading as practiced in the US is unethical and disgusting. If that is the case I am puzzled at why economists have been singled out here. The existing grading system evolved long before economists started taking a serious look at K-12 education. Perhaps it is the education schools or school boards tha are to blame.
I find this post very perplexing. In previous years, I had computed the grades for my classes by adding up the number of points correct on various assignments. This year I was considering subtracting the number of points missed from the total possible number of points. Because I would end up with the same total number of points for the class, I thought the two methods were equivalent. If there was some extra incentive for my students to study and not go out and get drunk (I teach at a large state university) due to loss aversion, so much the better. I had no idea that subtraction was immoral, loathsome, unethical, and undemocratic, while addition is the virtuous arithmetic operation. If I subtract the number of points missed, is it really “beyond disgusting”?
“If I subtract the number of points missed, is it really “beyond disgusting”?” Yes and No.
No not beyond disgusting “it” (the grades) exist in the irreal world of educational “assessment” as practiced currently (and has been since the West Point started “grading” students in the first half of the 1800s. How ironic that “points” started, at least in the US as it was brought over from France, at West POINT) Points whether subtracted or added are a chimera, un duende, a phantom in relation to attempting to assess a student’s performance. It is illogical and irrational to attempt to quantify, points/grades a process that lies in the realm of quality, i.e., teaching and leaning. Can’t be done except in the irreal world of modern educational practice. See Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577
Yes it is disgusting for all the harm that we do to children by sorting and separating them out on the false basis of “grades”. As a university teacher I’d bet you’ve been on the upper end of the “grading scale” and have benefited from it. How about those who are labelled D or F? Would I be motivated to go to a place that tells me I’m below average or that I’m a failure? Sorry, I just can’t figure out the logic behind thinking that such grades are a “motivator”.
Actually I have had two children with IEP’s. My foster son because of a number of learning disabilities and a biological son because of his high aptitude. Both suffered from the grading system, though in different ways.
When my foster son went to a community college, he was given standardized tests (I know you will say that is another issue) in the basic areas. He was scored as needing remedial work in all the subject areas that he passed in high school, but not needing remedial work in the only subject that he failed. I think there the grades he was getting miss-communicated his achievement to all of us, saying that his understanding was satisfactory when it was not.
A similar kind of thing happened to my other son. He found himself more knowledgeable then many of his teachers, and being an adolescent male (he graduated at 16), he resented the pointless homework assignments and non-academically related points in the class (two tissues boxes cost him half a grade in one class). As a result, his high school GPA did not put him in the top 10% of his graduating class. By most other measures (National Merit Scholar, National AP Scholar, Male Siemens AP prize winner for the state, a 4.0 in the years worth of university courses he took while in high school including upper division science courses and an upper level graduate course in mathematics, etc), he was clearly the most academically gifted student in his graduating class. Here the grades did not reflect is academic achievement, but if he was willing to do pointless assignments and be quite as the teacher mispronounced every Greek character in the Odyssey (that teacher left/was fired the next year, but too late for my son). For this son, his high school grades miss-communicated his academic abilities in the other direction.
So I certainly don’t think high school grades are very useful. They are not only motivators but a way to communicate achievement. If you believe you know who to write or do algebra because you pass a class, but if fact you can not write or solve a one variable equation, the system has failed you. If you are academically gifted but the grading system says you do not have as much potential as many of the students around you, the system has failed you.
Economists have as much business conducting educational research as I do conducting deep sea oceanographic research – in other words, NONE AT ALL!! Haushek and his cronies are absolutely bonkers with their “ideas”. Economists think that everything can be “incentivized” ( I love it when people take a noun, stick “-ize” on the end, and try to force the word to become a verb; shows not only are they clueless about educational research, they are woefully ignorant of language and grammar as well). That is somewhat true, but economists tend to believe that the only incentives that exist are monetary. Most economists also think almost exclusively in terms of the “carrot-and-stick” approach to managing organizations.
Just shows why the humanities, especially philosophy, REALLY need to be stressed much more in business colleges.
I think economists are very aware that there are all sorts of non-monetary awards. But lets think for a minute. Suppose the pay levels in school building were determined randomly, so a first year gym teacher might get a higher salary then the principle, the physics AP instructor who has an MA in Physics from an AAU research university a lower salary then the teaching assistant in the the social studies class.
Any predictions on what would happen in this type of school? Few would bother with further costly training, few would be willing to take on the added responsibility of being an administrator in the school.
What in the world are you trying to say here? I do not see anything germane to my post.
Yes, economists are great at playing the “what if” game and using counterfactuals.
What I am trying to say is that schools seem to use incentives all over the place. If you want a teacher to get an advanced degree, pay them more when they get one. If you want someone to take on the added responsibility of being a principle, pay them more to do it. The extra pay is an incentive for teachers to get an advanced degree, it is an incentive for people to be willing to do the extra, perhaps unpleasant work of being an administrator.
you have to consider the consequences. Hopefully a masters degree means you know more. Paying people to do more work means they do more work, even if it is unpleasant. If you pay them to produce higher test scores, you get teaching to the test and cheating, not necessarily more learnng
I do agree that people who try to create incentive systems often forget that folks will choose the least costly way to reach the reward. One can try to find a degree program that is the least taxing in order to get the increased salary that comes from an advanced degree, one could raise test scores simply by cheating for the students, and the easiest path to a bonus based on increased profits is to cheat on the book keeping.
I worry a lot about the ethics of teachers, so cheating on the exam is a large concern. I am less worried about teaching to the test. If the test is well designed, that should not be a problem. I would have preferred that in some of the classes my children have taken, given the idiosyncratic ramblings of some of the teachers they have had.
I think the core of the issue is in your last statement that this “does not necessarily result in more learning.” You leave open the possibility that it does lead to more learning, but it is difficult to know if it does without having some way to measure it. How could we tell if it results in more learning or not?
You assume that standardized tests are accurate measures of learning. From what I have seen of these tests, I don’t agree. They are very limited measures.
Diane
I don’t mean to be assuming that standardized tests are a good measure of learning.I would be happy with any good measure. If standardized tests are known to be a poor measure of learning, it must be because we know of more accurate measures of learning. What are they, and lets use those to evaluate how well schools are educating students.
Do you use multiple choice tests to assess what your students have learned? If their scores don’t go up, is it your fault?
Diane
Much to my TA’s sorrow, I use a mix of multiple choice questions and free response questions to gauge my students comprehension of the material, though others use only multiple choice exams. Would you accept something like the AP exams, which use free response questions, as a good measure of student learning? Perhaps a standardized test like that would be useful, though expensive to administer.
The issue of who is to blame for lack of learning is not the same as the issue of a test being an accurate measure of student learning. I am surprised that you confuse the two. But to answer your question, it might be my fault that students did not learn in my class. It might be the students fault for not coming to class or putting any effort into the class. It might be the textbooks fault for explaining things badly. It might be the K-12 instructors who never actually taught the students to understand simple arithmetic operations (one third of the incoming class at my state flagship university are not able to take college level mathematics courses when they enroll. We certainly do not have NYU’s admissions requirements). Non if this determines if the test, multiple choice or not, is a good measure of learning.
The claim is that standardized testing ( I am now guessing you mean something more like the SAT exams then AP exams) is not an accurate measure of learning. You are undoubtedly correct, so I am just curious about how to accurately measure learning.
I would seek more evidence than a multiple choice exam, as you do. I spent seven years on the federal testing board and am not as impressed by these exams as you are.
Diane
I am not particularly impressed by the exams at all, just curious about the evidence that they do not accurately reflect learning.
It seems to me that the only way to know a particular measurement is not accurate is by comparing it to something that is a more accurate measure of learning. I, for example, have learned through long experience that my estimate of my own weight is not only inaccurate but biased downwards. I learned this by comparing it to what an bathroom scale states as my weight. I am stuck with what the scale says, despite my beliefs that I have increased my level of exercise and reduced my caloric intake. The fact that I don’t like what the scale tells me does not change my weight.
What “learning bathroom scale” is typically used to reach the conclusion that all standardized tests are as inaccurate as my overly optimistic beliefs about my weight?
Your scale accurately portrays your weight.
But a standardized test measures a very narrow sample of the domain of what you taught.
Unless you studied the test, and taught only what was on the test. Then the test would be a good gauge.
So perhaps the better way to think of it is the standardized exam measures a part (perhaps an important part if well designed) of what is thought to be taught in the class, so it represents an incomplete picture, not really an inaccurate one.
The conclusion one should reach from a poor performance on a standardized exam (assuming good student effort, of course) is that students did not learn part of what was thought to be taught in the class , but it provides no evidence about other things not covered by the exam that students may or may not have learned in the class. That seems correct. It also seems correct that if students have not learned the concepts and material that the standardized exam can accurately test, it is a problem.
If I can push the scale analogy a little further, the standardized test can tell me my weight, but does not reveal my body mass index, percentage of body fat, and fitness level. The fact that I find the weight the scale tells me unpleasant (“If their scores don’t go up, is it your fault?”) does not mean the scale is inaccurate or that this partial picture of my health is not informative.
This has gone a long way from the initial post, and my initial question. If I give students say 1,000 points at the beginning of the semester and take away points for each point reduction on a free
Think of it this way. If students beginning in kindergarten and all the way through high school are never measured in any way except by a bubble test with four choices, don’t you think at some point it starts to affect their way of thinking? Don’t you think that it cheapens the very concept of knowledge if it can be reduced to a multiple choice test. I do. I would never teach that way or want my students to think that way. Good guessing is not what I want my students to cultivate.
It is interesting that the discussion started with
1) Standardized tests are useless then
2) Standardized tests only measure some of the learning in class to
3) Standardized tests change the way students think and learn.
I have to say that being able to make educated guesses about things is an extremely valuable life skill. People hardly ever have full information when having to make real world decisions.
Try spending year after year being judged for life only by your answers to bubble tests. It may rot the brain and discourage divergent thinking, which is never allowed. You should read more about psychometrics. Those who know the tests best think little of them. They are useful for information but are misused when attached to rewards or punishments. Read the National Research Council report, “Incentives and Test-Based Accountability” (2011).
My comment was not so much about the validity of your claim about the effect of standardized testing on student thinking, but the sudden change in grounds of your criticism from being a poor way to evaluate learning to have a bad influence on learning. These seem to be to be two different issues.
I am new to this and not familiar with the literature, but from my observations as the parent of three very different children attending what is thought of as a very good public school district and my exposure to students at the relatively open admission state university at which i teach (You are automatically admitted with a C average in core subject areas or graduate in the top third of your class or get a 980 on the math+verbal SAT), the evaluation of students and faculty in K-12 education leaves a great deal to be desired.
Student grades depend too much on how cooperative the students are in class and not enough on student’s understanding of the material being taught. As a parent I have been misled to think one child was learning when he actually was not and another child was not learning when he actually was well beyond the material being taught in the class.
Faculty who should obviously not be allowed in the class room have taught my children. It was not that these teachers were below average, it was that these teachers were obviously terrible. We have to find a better way to evaluate both groups, so we can find out what works for each student and what does not work.
Warren,
You stated: “I love it when people take a noun, stick “-ize” on the end, and try to force the word to become a verb; shows not only are they clueless about educational research, they are woefully ignorant of language and grammar as well”
Can’t agree with what you stated. Languages are forever fluent, especially English which gladly takes in new words (unlike French let’s say) whether from another language or through the coinage of a new phrase/word. As a Spanish teacher I am quite aware of this language fluidity as words pass from Spanish to English and English to Spanish. Tacos, anyone?? I coined/use the word “irreality” which is a combination of the Spanish “irrealidad” and English “reality”. I like the prefix “ir” in this case before reality as for me it gives a different meaning than just “unreal” or “unreality” which would be the “accepted” word.
However I do agree with “Economists have as much business conducting educational research as I do conducting deep sea oceanographic research – in other words, NONE AT ALL!!” and this “Just shows why the humanities, especially philosophy, REALLY need to be stressed much more in business colleges.”
I had a standard threat for my high school math kids for a very specific algebra mistake. I said I would use that big paper cutter down in the main office to cut off their pinky finger. My students knew I couldn’t do that, but they could imagine it, so there was always a big “Ewwwwww!” After that, I would just hold up a four-fingered hand when I saw the mistake and again “Ewwwwww!”
I also had a framing hammer at the ready (since we built and wrecked a lot of stuff in class) that had the attention of the class. I was old enough to say “I can’t remember the last time I had to use this….”
I can also admit this (since I am retired): After Columbine, with schools developing procedures for dealing with dangerous persons, my class was armed to the teeth with drills, screwdrivers, lumber, metal rods, metal masses to throw etc. We practiced what we would do in case of danger, and it did not include sitting around waiting to become a target. I told the principal not to send anyone around to check my room during lockdown or we might throw the door open and kill whoever we saw.
As stupid as this seems, the kids felt better about their safety.
I am amazed at how many of my teaching colleagues stick their heads in the sand around these issues. The best advice from a pragmatice perspective is to put the money into a 6 month cd, if they still make those things. If you have to turn in the money at the end of the year at least you get to keep the interest. and the pressure’s off.