On Apr 14, 8:43=A0pm, Dom <DR...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> courant.com/news/education/hc-schools0412.artapr12,0,4467040.story
>
> Courant.com
> Students At 9 Conn. High Schools To Get Financial Incentives
>
> By LYNN DOAN, Courant Staff Writer
>
> April 12, 2008
[snip]
The following Letter to the Editor was published today.
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courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-
digedlets0419.art5apr19,0,776359.story
AP Rewards Set Bad Example
April 19, 2008
Paying students to pass Advanced Placement examinations and giving
bonuses to their teachers [Page 1, April 12, "Pass Test, Get $100"] is
bad pedagogy and ethically suspect.
Despite government and cor****ate pressure, teaching and learning have
never fit business models that reduce success and failure to a
quantitative bottom-line, extol competition and link "results" to
cash.
My high school students perform best when they are intrinsically
interested in their studies. If the goal of Project Opening Doors is
to attract students to math, science and English, ExxonMobil could
have used its $13.2 million to much better effect by paying for field
trips to science labs, intern****ps with mathematicians and writers'
visits to schools.
Helping kids devise their own science experiments, showing them the
creative possibilities inherent in mathematics and nurturing their
enthusiasm for words and language would yield far greater results than
dispensing $100 bills for minimum passing grades on AP exams.
Good teachers find ways to foster student interest in a subject
matter. My students tell me all the time that they want their studies
to be relevant to their lives, and they show themselves capable of
extraordinary effort and achievement when they feel a personal
connection with their work.
Lots of research confirms that we cannot simply reduce learning to a
business. It is a pity that the leaders of the nine high schools who
are taking the oil company's money, and even the state commissioner of
education, are pursuing a path that defies classroom experience and
the educational literature.
Christopher L. Doyle, Ph.D., Simsbury
The writer teaches Advanced Placement U.S. history and Advanced
Placement European history at Farmington High School.
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