Three Sigma Systems

Motivators

W. E. Deming used to begin his seminars with a commentary on the fallacy of extrinsic motivators. He would ask the question, “Is money a motivator?” then proceeded to answer, “It is not!”

The same applies to all forms of extrinsic motivation.

Dale, a professional educator, wrote:

There is some conflicting research concerning the relationship with rewards and intrinsic motivation. Marzano’s meta-analysis “Classrooms Instruction That Works” concludes that praise and rewards for easy tasks or just completing a tasks may lower intrinsic motivation.
Rewards are most effective when they are contingent on the attainment performance and may enhance intrinsic motivation.

The problem with the research to which Dale refers is that the researcher begins with the all-to-common assumption that individual students are motivated in predictable and useful ways by differential rewards and punishments. The researcher only asks the question; under what circumstances are the rewards and punishments most effective? The researcher begs the question and perpetuates the fallacy that differential rewards and punishments are integral to the successful education of students.

To begin with, there is no need to deny that administering rewards and
punishments affects student behavior. (Please keep in mind that differential
rewards cannot be separated from punishments—–where there are winners there
are losers.) The question that must be asked about the model itself is, does
this methodology produce predicable and desirable educational outcomes? If
we answer this question by comparing educational outcomes in the U.S. with
those in Europe and Asia, we should be worried.

Years ago I had the privilege of founding and leading a high school under
California’s “Necessary Small High School” formula. As a school principal
working under this formula, I was given great latitude in designing the
school program “…as long as I produced great average daily attendance (ADA)
revenues. Money was king then as it is today.

Although this was long before I met Deming, I was young, energetic, and
thoroughly steeped in the Sociology of Knowledge, social systems, and
Symbolic Interactionism. In other words, I was already committed to the idea
that viewing the classroom as an assemblage of unique individuals, each of
whom was to be shaped and molded through my intervention, was not the best
way to go about the task of educating students.

Here are some of the theoretical assumptions I used:

- Learning is a natural and ongoing process. Everyone is learning all of the time.
The question is not whether learning is happening. It is rather, what is being
learned in the school/classroom setting? The role of the educator is to channel
what is being learned.

- Learning and the emergence of the unique self occurs in an interacting community
of diverse “significant others”. The process is “wholeistic”. On an ongoing basis, every
event and every interaction contributes to what emerges as learning.

- Students (and people in general) ARE MOTIVATED (intrinsically) to see
themselves as members of a worthy group of people doing worthwhile work
(creating value.) To this end, educators as leaders must continuously help
the learning community to formulate and adopt worthwhile aims.

- Every student seeks the respect of the members of his/her community.
Respect is not to be confounded with unconditional approval, which comes and
goes with the turn of events.

- Every student wishes to be responsible for his/her actions in the context
of a community that reciprocates responsibly. (Here, the term responsibility
refers to a willingness to “answer to the community” for the consequences of
one’s actions.)

- Variations in student performance are to be expected. Aptitudes and
abilities will vary. Rate of progress will vary.

- By definition, most variation in individual student performance will be a
function of the school and classroom system. Special handling in these cases
will be deleterious to the educational process.

NOTE: It is possible to have a school/classroom situation that is
out-of-control. Bringing the school/classroom into a state of control is a
topic for a different discussion.

- Some students will have “special” issues, and when these issues cause
performance problems that are outside the system, these individuals need to
receive special attention to eliminate or mitigate these causes.

- Educators must adopt methods for differentiating variations in student
performance that are common and those that are special and must act or not
act, accordingly.

- Approval given by educational leaders on the basis of performance
differentials divides the learning community by pitting student against
student. It is an ultimate act of disrespect.

- Performance variation that is common to the school/classroom setting
reflects educators’ design and implementation of the system. Continuous
improvement requires constant study and revision of theory and methods.
Students must participate in this process. (What is our aim? How are we
doing? How can we do better? We are all here to make a contribution to the
system for learning.)

- Educators must participate and contribute to the learning community as
leaders AND as citizens.

Of course the implications of the theory underling these points leads us on
and on. Hopefully the Deming-savvy reader gets a sense of where it all
leads.

As all U.S. educators know, the students we receive into our learning
communities suffer from all that has gone before—broken and disabled
families, disruptive neighborhoods, and misinformed pedagogy. In adopting a
different approach, we must battle our way through habits and expectations
formed on the basis of the perverse incentives (differential rewards and
punishments) that have done so much damage. As an educator, I used to think
of myself as a sort of “horse whisperer” for students and faculty, doing my
best to calm the fears that were so deeply engrained in these people.

So how did it work?

The school district loved the fact that my ADA funding was 99%. Students
would drag themselves to school while sick and I would have to force them to
go home.

Teachers were slowest to come around but once they adopted the new methods,
they became born again educators, filled with ideas and no longer viewing
the their students as enemies to be overcome.

Academic performance based on standardized testing showed that the rate of
performance improvement from baseline measures was often multiple grade
levels in a single semester. Once unfettered by rewards and punishments,
student who had fallen behind quickly regained lost ground. Of those at
grade level and above many explained that their participation had enable
them to recapture lost hopes and dreams.

Teachers found that the time necessary to meet district curriculum
requirements was dramatically reduced, giving them time to enjoy themselves
as educators-learners.

In subsequent study I discovered that the approach I had used is very much
the standard in Japan up to about their 8th grade equivalent. Beyond that,
they begin to route students to specialized schools based on demonstrated
aptitudes. We may presume that those aptitudes were allowed to express
themselves most abundantly during their primary education. I wonder how many
useful people, great leaders and great followers, we have destroyed by
judging them losers before they ever had a chance?

My pet project was disassembled after about 4 years. With the ADA funding
recovered, the district moved to reintegrate our faculty and student body
into the mainstream. Paradoxically, our little success produced my own
failure, and soon thereafter I left public education for private enterprise.

The progress of the American educational enterprise since, is an open book.
How are we doing? NOT VERY WELL.