Barry Schwartz "The Bebasing Of Education".

Barry Schwartz is an American born August 15, 1946. He is a psychologist and a professor. He got his BA from the New York University and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a professor at Swarthmore College. ‘The Debasing of Education' is from his book and it is from chapter nine.(page 72) This chapter focuses on education and how incentives ruin the process of learning and how they take away the excitement of learning. In this chapter education is made to seem like a job that does not pay that well, meaning that not everyone will be interested in it. As I was reading through the text I realized that I have seen these patterns happening around me and to me.  But the most important one is the incentive behind learning because it is the most common cause of change in motivation to learn at school.
                First, you are told to study hard and you will get good grades, which is the most common thing that teachers say to students. Now that I know I am supposed to get good grades when I study, I will put in a lot of effort to make sure that I get those grades. But what happens if I studied really hard but I do not get the grades? I become demotivated to try harder next time. I might try harder the next few times but if it persists I will eventually stop studying because I know that I will not get the good grades. As soon as I realize that my teacher lied to me about studying hard and getting good grades I become less motivated to study nor learn about the subject in question.
                Secondly, incentives such as prizes cause students to focus on getting the prize and less focused on learning the subject. When I was in primary school and prizes were introduced to us for getting good grades and finishing books quickly. I realized that most of us lost our ability to chill and talk to each other. I even ended up not talking to any of my friends because I was so focused on winning the price that I forgot about them. But there are also some students that give up trying when they do not win any prizes. So they would rather not read the book or do the work because they know that they will not be receiving any prices.
                Finally, the incentive that kills the learning process is the career incentive. We are told that doctors and engineers make the most money. This makes us want to follow a career path that we are not passionate about, we do not like and know little of. This will cause most students to take courses that put a lot of strain on them and might also take them longer to finish because they are not truly learning because they love it but because they want the credit that comes with being a doctor for example.
                As soon as an incentive is introduced into an educational system, grades might improve for some people but most people will not remember what they learned at the end of the day. And if you do not know what your career is about you might have problems in the future which might result in you regretting why you took a path that you were not passionate about. You might hate yourself for being driven by the incentive and not your own passion.

Works cited
Martinsen-Burrell, N., & Kleinhans, K. (2013). Asking questions, making choices: IS 101 reader.               Waverly, IA: Wartburg College.

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