Death before losing!!

Last night was racquetball night.  I was down 14-0 in the first game.  The thought hit my mind that now would be a great time for a Cardiac Malfunction.  Hit the floor, turn purple and have all these people rush to save me.  They don't do mouth to mouth any more--which I am thankful, because I wouldn't want to be revived, if I knew Jeremy, the person whipping my @#$, had given me the gift of life.  On the other hand, if one of those co-ed cheerleader types wanted to help out I wouldn't complain.  By the time it was over and I am revived or not, no one, would remember the score.  Enough of the fantasy--final score  15-0.  The good news is that I won the next game 15-13.

On the way in, (Driving a bus full of aliens),I heard the new plan for S.S. schools to have performance pay for school teachers.  So what does that say about our "Professional teachers"?  If your students do better, we will pay you more?  Have we forgotten what happened in Chicago?  The teachers cheated so they wouldn't look bad and/or to get more money.  Are the people in Arkansas any different?  I have known teachers who cheated on the benchmarks and not even had money tied into it.  If I was a principal and my teachers suddenly started working hard and caring about their students learning, just because they might get paid more, I would lose respect for those teachers.   

The obvious problem is functionality.  Paying teachers more isn't going to improve test scores much, if at all.  Just like all these standards and professional developments, haven't changed scores either.  We are wasting our money motivating the wrong people.  The students are who we need to motivate.  Take all the money wasted on professional development and new programs on how to teach and use it to motivate students, then you will see test scores improve.  This is a material society and most students are not self driven to do well.  If students knew they could get something they want, ( a wii, ipod, or a name brand clothes), they would work hard for it.  For those who feel it is wrong to pay kids to learn, that they should learn because they want to, don't live on this planet and during this age.  So while we would preferred them to be self motivated, we must accept that they are not, and if thru rewards, they learn the skills they need for the next level of education, we have accomplished our goal of actually educating them.