Money & Motivation

Here are two articles I'd like you to look at. The first is from Friday's (4/15/10) New York Times. Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, vetoed a bill "eliminating tenure for Florida public school teachers and tying their pay and job security to how well their students were learning."

Now, some people would see that as Crist caving in to the powerful teachers' unions, but according to the governor "his decision was not political. He cited 'the incredible outpouring of opposition by teachers, parents, students, superintendents, school boards and legislators'.”

There are two problems with the bill, as I see it. First of all, as the governor noted "the changes envisioned would put 'teachers in jeopardy of losing their jobs and teaching certificates, without a clear understanding of how gains will be measured'.” In other words, what test truly measures how much students have learned. Secondly, I feel that a lot of what students gain from their classroom experience does not directly pertain to a standardized curriculum.

But here's a bigger problem, and this second piece addresses it. It's from Newshour on PBS, so I don't imagine any of you happened to see this last Thursday. It's nine minutes and nine seconds, but really worth watching for any of you planning on working for a living.

DANIEL PINK: We tend to think that the way you get people to perform at a high level is, you reward what you want and punish what you don't want, carrot and stick. If you do this, then you get that.

That turns out, the science says, to be an extraordinarily effective way of motivating people for those routine tasks, simple, straightforward, where there's a right answer. They end up being a terrible form for motivating people to do creative conceptual tasks.

So, as far as you're concerned, if the point of school is to make you learn certain things -- we should reward you when you do, and punish you when you don't. (And money turns out to be a goos way to do that -- but more about that later. And as far as I'm concerned, rewards (money), or punishment (loss of job) will motivate me to make sure you learn those things (or, perform well on the tests judging those things). The problem? We -- the both of us -- lose creativity.

BARRY SCHWARTZ, psychologist, Swarthmore College: Money isn't a natural part of anything we do. It's not a part of practicing medicine. You know, the natural thing to practicing medicine is healing people. Getting paid for it is unnatural, similarly with law and with any profession, teaching. So, maybe what happens is that what money does is, it disconnects people from the real point and purpose of their activity.

What should be my motivator as an educator: my students, or my pocketbook?

Can't it be both? Well, consider sales commissions. If I were a salesman, the more I sell, the more I make. Makes sense right? The more students I can make pass the test, the more money I make. Well, a company called System Source P. C.s did away with commissions. What happened to sales?

PAUL SOLMAN: Weinstein says sales spurted 44 percent as soon as commissions were canned in 1994. Profitability rose threefold.

Oh.

MAURY WEINSTEIN: We find that money often disrupts relationships. It disrupts customer efforts. And, sometimes, it makes the customer feel like a piece of meat, where you can't trust the salesperson's recommendations. And that's a very slippery slope at that point.

Trust. Relationships. Are these things necessary in school? In life?

DANIEL PINK: We do things because they're interesting. We do things because we like them. We do things because we get better at them, because they contribute to the world, even if they don't have a payoff in getting a reward or satisfying some -- some biological drive.

This is not a plea for a kinder, gentler approach to business. This is a plea for saying, let's wake up. Let's get past our outdated assumptions, and let's actually run businesses in concert with what the science shows about human performance.

Zen Driving

I swear, drivers are getting worse and worse every year. In more of a hurry. Way more distracted, what with phones and texting and video, and before long, the internet. Not to mention just the rudeness and incivility that results from a general breakdown of social order.

So what can we possibly do to make drivers drive better?

Take away some of the rules.

Huh?

This short editorial appeared recently in The New York Times.

Recently, I have been considering the four-way stop. It is, I think, the most successful unit of government in the State of California. It may be the perfect model of participatory democracy, the ideal fusion of “first come, first served” and the golden rule. There are four-way stops elsewhere in the country. But they are ubiquitous in California, and they bring out a civility — let me call it a surprising civility — in drivers here in a state where so much has recently gone so wrong.

Verlyn Klinkenborg (I wonder if that's the same Verlyn Klinkenborg I was in the Navy with?) found that surprisingly, people tended to behave themselves better at a four-way stop. Drivers will happily run through red lights -- it's "the man", after all, telling you when to stop and when to go. Well, screw him: I'm going! But at a four-way stop, well, we're kind of all in it together.

I find myself strangely reassured each time I pass through a four-way stop. A social contract is renewed, and I pull away feeling better about my fellow humans, which some days, believe me, can take some doing. We arrive as strangers and leave as strangers. But somewhere between stopping and going, we must acknowledge each other. California is full of drivers everywhere acknowledging each other by winks and less-friendly gestures, by glances in the mirrors, as they catapult down the freeways. But at a four-way stop, there is an almost Junior League politeness about it.

Which got me thinking about old Hans Monderman, father of the naked road (warning: a couple of pictures that illustrate this informative article feature naked backsides. Just sayin'.)

The idea that made Monderman, who died of cancer in January at the age of 62, most famous is that traditional traffic safety infrastructure—warning signs, traffic lights, metal railings, curbs, painted lines, speed bumps, and so on—is not only often unnecessary, but can endanger those it is meant to protect.

As I drove with Monderman through the northern Dutch province of Friesland several years ago, he repeatedly pointed out offending traffic signs. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.”

It seems counter-intuitive. Or maybe not. The more things you do to slow people down, the more they try to beat it. (Think of the driveway leading up to the high school. More than the speed bumps, it's the curves they put in that force you to slow.) But take away barriers, curbs, and put pedestrinas in play, and guess what? People slow down.

Who'da thunk?

Rest in Splendour!

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Thomas Gray, "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

Completely by accident (I think -- who really knows) I came across this website. Now I'm guessing there aren't many people who would choose to spend all eternity in Buffalo, New York, (sorry, Buffalo) -- but think again. If you could be buried in the Blue Sky Mausoleum, in a tomb designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?!

Frank Lloyd Wright, as you may already be aware, was an architect, and recognized pretty much universally as a genius. His most famous creation, probably, was a house called Fallingwater, built right over a small stream.


They won't say anywhere on the website exactly how much it would cost, so I'm assuming that places it out of my price range. ("If you have to ask, you can't afford it.") There are only twenty-four crypts available (I'm not sure how many are left), and they claim that the design will not be reproduced anywhere in the world. If you've got to be dead, that is the way to go.

But then I start thinking that maybe burial's not for me. Maybe I'd rather be shot into space! Now, I can be placed in orbit for a mere $2495 -- well, not me, exactly. An ounce of my ashes. Of course, for double the price, I can send seven ounces of myself up. That would still leave almost five and a half pounds of cremated remains behind (ain't Wikipedia awesome?).

But why think small. For a mere $14,995, ($22,495 for Preferred Service -- whatever that is) my wife and I could spend eternity on the moon. Now that's more like it. That ought to make some impression at my 75th class reunion.

But I've got to admit I'm really tempted by the Voyager package -- an ounce of my earthly remains sent into deep space!

Now, in my research I also found this fascinating website -- for
the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery and Crematorium, "America's First and Most Prestigious Pet Burial Grounds." (I can't vouch for "most prestigious", but I'll take them at their word for oldest.) Good old Grumpy. "He waits for us" -- with pipe and slippers, no doubt.

"Addicted to Celebrities"

"Fame after death is the noblest of goals," says Beowulf, right before he goes off to tangle with Grendel's mother.

(No, not that Grendel's mother!)

Well, what good is fame going to do us after death, that's what I'd like to know. I just gave you an article by spoilsport Chris Hedges, who argues that our current obsession with fame is not good for us -- it fills us with false values and distracts us from important things.

But then I came across this article, which clued me into a phenomenon of which I was wholly unaware -- "haul videos". Apparently there are young girls who go out shopping, and then post videos on YouTube about what they buy. I watched the one about Blair all the way through -- man, does that girl ever stop talking -- but I have to give her credit: jeans for $6.99? I've paid as much as $35.00 for a pair of jeans. And the girl obviously has something on the ball -- she has makes and post these videos on two YouTube channels, some of them are tutorials and not just hauls. I just wonder where's she's going to be in ten years. Is this enough to build a life on? Or maybe it's just a hobby.

And click on the link for SoCal Ashley Danielle. It turns out fame can be a bummer. Ashley's been getting all these negative comments from people (including mothers, apparently), calling her a spoiled brat. She doesn't mind if poeple call her ugly, but it hurts her when people criticize her personality, because, she says, despite these videos about clothes and makeup, she's more concerned with what's on the inside than on the outside.

Anyway, I found the article interesting, and the videos, in a strange way, fascinating.

A Heartwarming Story

This was today's story from Story Corps.

Now I've often said that if my tombstone looked like this



I'd be a happy man.

Ralph Catania qualifies -- and the son he raised was not even his own flesh and blood.

Give it a listen. 3 minutes, 22 seconds. You won't be sorry.

Problematic Pronouns

Okay, so we had a little trouble with that "he/she - they" thing.

"If a student is late to class, he/she/they had better have a pass."

"Well now, student is singular, so it should be he."
"What if the student is a girl?"
"Doesn't matter. It's still he."
"That's sexist."
"That's right. But that's the rule. You could say she. But then what if the student is a boy? To be on the safe side, why don't you try he/she?"
"What, and sound like a doofus?"
"Yes, but a grammatically correct doofus."
"But I've heard you say many times in class 'If a student is going to be late to class, they'd better have a pass.'"
"Oh, sure. I don't want to offend anybody. And you all know what I mean."
"But now you're telling me that's grammatically incorrect."
"What I'm saying is, in real life we use he/she/they all the time. And in twenty to fifty years it will probably be accepted usage. But in the meantime, if a person were taking the SAT, he/she should use he or she or, preferably, he/she."
"(Doofus.")

Here's a good page from a very reputable source to tell you a little more about this.

And while we're at it, here's one that we did better on, but can still be troublesome -- especially considering that in idiomatic English, we often misspeak.

"Me and Bob went to the store."
"Bob and me went to the store."
Mom took Bob and I to the store."

Which is correct? None is. (Or is that"none are"? Damn!)*

"Bob and I went to the store", but "Mom took Bob and me to the store."

Here's the skinny on that one.




* Either, depending on context, is acceptable. The etymology of the word, along with the usage of more than five centuries, supports the senses of “not one” (singular) and “not any” (plural). On this descriptivists and informed prescriptivists agree, and bad teaching and bad advice are the only reasons that the superstition that “none” can be used only with a singular verb has survived.

Jaco Pastorius

We were listening to Joni Mitchell's "Hejira" in class today, from the album of the same name. Joni, the archtypical confessional singer-songwriter, was venturing out of her comfort zone, and into the realm of jazz. (And, god bless her, she's kept on this road of growth and experimentation her whole life long.)

A big part of the sound on that LP was Jaco Pastorius's bass.

Jaco was something of a prodigy: only twenty-five at the time, had only just recorded his first album. (Read more about him here. Listen to a remembrance on NPR here. ANd here, a message board for "Jaco Stories".) He went on to a brilliant -- but brief -- career, short-circuited by alcohol, drugs, and mental illness. (How come nobody's made a movie about this -- it's the classic tortured artist motif?)

His life ended tragically. After having snuck on stage at a Carlos Santana concert (and being escorted off), he went to a local bar where he got into an altercation with a bouncer, who apparently beat him to death. This fact I cannot verify, but it's reported that after he was removed, brain-dead, from life-support systems -- that his heart beat on for three hours.

Route 66 -- The Mother Road

Well, of course this is the road used by the Joads on their trip to California. It was the main road then, and it no longer exists now -- it was officially "decommissioned" in the 1980's. But it lives on -- in people's hearts, on the internet, and in stretches of highway -- some still used, some forgotten and decaying.

Here is one site that gives a good quick history of "The Main Street of America". Here's an excellent one from the National Park Service. And there are plenty of others.

Here's one: Ghost Towns of Route 66. Once the interstates came through, they sucked what lifeblood remained from the small western towns.

How about Route 66 in postcards?

One website will give you a Route 66 slideshow.

Route 66 even has a song written about it. You can watch it performed by Nat King Cole here, or watch the Rolling Stones cover it here.

There was even a tv show about Route 66 in the early '60's: "Two young men drive around the US in a now vintage Corvette, working at odd jobs, helping people, and searching for adventure. Ironically, the show was filmed on location all across the USA, but rarely near the real Route 66."

And this I did not know until just now: it is a cultural treasure akin the ruins of Pompei, the Andean city of Machu Pichu, as judged by the World Monuments Watch, which focuses global attention on cultural heritage sites around the world in dire need of preservation.

Life is What Happens While. . .

you're busy making other plans.

That's what John Lennon said, and it's a saying that I often quote.

Here's an example, from today's New York Times -- (the obituary section, unfortunately).

Georgelle Hirliman, ‘Writer in the Window,’With Answers, Is Dead at 73

Georgelle Hirliman, whose innovative solution to writer’s block a quarter-century ago gave her a national career as a performance artist — and a book to boot — died on Jan. 29 in Santa Fe, N.M. She was 73 and a Santa Fe resident.

The cause was cancer, said Devon Ludlow, a longtime friend.

In 1984, hopelessly blocked on a novel, Ms. Hirliman hit on the idea of setting up shop with her typewriter in a Santa Fe storefront. Beside her, she placed a sign:

Help Me Cure My Writer’s Block — Give Me a Topic.

People stopped and stared. Before long they began scribbling questions on slips of paper and taping them to the window. (Q. Where do the ducks go when ponds freeze over?) Ms. Hirliman fired off brief, aphoristic replies and taped them back up for all to see. (A. Warm, chlorinated pools in Miami and Beverly Hills.)

She never wrote her novel, but it no longer mattered: Ms. Hirliman was soon appearing in windows across the United States and Canada, her work widely reported in the news media.

In Manhattan she wrote in the windows of The Village Voice, Shakespeare & Co. on the Upper West Side and B. Dalton on Fifth Avenue, among other places, sitting daily for eight hours at a stretch. Store owners paid her $50 to $100 a day, New York magazine reported in 1985.

As Bugs Bunny used to sometimes lament: "It's a living."

(Extra credit if you can tell me the literary reference embedded above.)

What Scarlet Letter?

I assume you all know who this is. But how about

this guy? What could they possibly have in common?

This.

The first guy, as you probably know, is the golfer Tiger Woods. He's won a lot of golf tournaments and hence a lot of money. And, as you probably also know, he recently had a nasty spat with his wife over his (repeated) infidelity. This past Friday, February 19, 2010, he made his first public statement regarding the matter.

To Robert Stein, this all looked familiar.

His pillory a golf-clubhouse lectern, America's most famous athlete staged his own public humiliation yesterday for a TV camera, the 21st century equivalent of donning the scarlet "A" for a bloodthirsty Puritan crowd.

Now if you're one of my current seniors, and you had Ivy Morrison as your teacher last year, you know what he's talking about: Chapter 1 of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne emerges from prison. Before she can take up her place in society, she must subject herself to an hour of public humiliation, standing before the good citizens of Boston town, wearing the symbol of her shame (adultery) on her breast -- the scarlet letter A.

It may be true, that, to a sensitive observer, there was something exquisitely painful in it. Her attire, which, indeed, she had wrought for the occasion, in prison, and had modelled much after her own fancy, seemed to express the attitude of her spirit, the desperate recklessness of her mood, by its wild and picturesque peculiarity. But the point which drew all eyes, and, as it were, transfigured the wearer,—so that both men and women, who had been familiarly acquainted with Hester Prynne, were now impressed as if they beheld her for the first time,—was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself.
“She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain,” remarked one of the female spectators; “but did ever a woman, before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it! Why, gossips, what is it but to laugh in the faces of our godly magistrates, and make a pride out of what they, worthy gentlemen, meant for a punishment?”
“It were well,” muttered the most iron-visaged of the old dames, “if we stripped Madam Hester’s rich gown off her dainty shoulders; and as for the red letter, which she hath stitched so curiously, I’ll bestow a rag of mine own rheumatic flannel, to make a fitter one!”
“O, peace, neighbours, peace!” whispered their youngest companion. “Do not let her hear you! Not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart.”

But I'm not here to tell you that story. I just wanted to point out that out there are -- in the "real world" -- people who know this story. And they find it relevant 160 years after it was published.

Furthermore, they assume that their readers -- as literate, educated Americans -- will recognize the allusion. If you don't -- and it could be your boss, or a customer, or a prospective boyfriend/girlfriend -- you expose yourself as, well, someone not of the first rank.