Thing 5: Continued...Pay for Play

Much of intellectual history is rife with theories that split people into two broad groups or perspectives. Rationalists v. Empiricists. Determinists v. Free Willists. Pragmatists v. Principal. Liberals v. Conservatives. Right Brain Thinkers v. Left Brain Thinkers. Isiah Berlin's famous Fox v. Hedgehog. Most of these are meant to be somewhat metaphorical and very little in real life falls cleanly into one group or the other (the Right/Left Brain distinction that is so popular today is particularly pernicious in that it is directly contradicted by virtually all we know about neurology).

Nonetheless, they provide useful frameworks to talk about value distinctions and differential philosophies. I would like to propose one of my own coining. That of the Engineering Perspective versus the Humanities perspective. Broadly, the Engineering perspective look at societal issues as problems to be solved dispassionately, with an eye to the most efficient, elegant solution. The Humanities perspective seeks to impute moral and ethical considerations into the mix. A solution that solves the problem while violating strongly held mores is not a solution worth having. Obviously this is in large part a reformulation of the Pragmatics v. Principal argument, and I don't believe either perspective is more valuable than the other. Both are needed and have much to speak for themselves. Nonetheless, occasionally an issue comes up that clarifies the distinction nicely.

Popping up in my Google Reader today from the Inside School Research blog on Edweek comes this article, highlighting a new research study from the UK in which evidence was found that a program that pays students for staying in school had positive results. From the article:

The program went national in 2004. But, in 1999, when it first began, it was available only to students in some urban school districts whose family incomes fell below a certain level. The weekly payments, which typically came to 30 to 40 British pounds, were about a third of what students would have earned had they been employed instead, according to the study.

The sums were apparently large enough to entice more students to stay in school, though. School participation rates in the nine experimental districts were 4.5 percentage points higher in the first year of the program than they were in nine demographically similar areas in which no payments were offered. In the second year of the program, participation rates were 6.7 percentage points higher. The bigger the weekly payment, the study also found, the greater was the impact.

My intention in highlighting this is not to comment on the shortcomings or validity of the study. It is probably too early to do that. Nonetheless, this seems to me a classic wedge issue that will deeply split those within education with Engineering perspectives versus those with Humanities leanings. If it turns out that cash incentives DO in fact result in greater student outcomes, those with an Engineers bent will likely push hard for similar programs on a large scale in the U.S. Why spend money on programs and support staff with little or no impact on learning when we can simply funnel that money directly to students and get (literally) more back for the buck? Those with Humanities perspective will likely blanch at an idea that throws out the cherished ideas of intrinsic motivation, learning for learning's sake, and edification based on knowledge into crude cash payments for finishing school. For many people the idea of paying students just feels deeply wrong if not outright immoral.

My point here is not to take sides or to give an opinion. There is far more research and debate that needs to happen before a program like this would see the light of day (if ever) on a large scale. But rest assured...this WILL be a debate soon (there have already been inklings of it here and there). And remembering the Engineer/Humanities distinction will be a useful tool in sorting through arguments when that time comes.