Paying Students to Study and Behave in school

It is a statement that is anathema to the very foundational beliefs of our social order. Students should be motivated to learn because of the intrinsic external and internal forces; the same forces that have always "force" those in the past to function well and do their work, dutifully. What has education come to when we have to be paying students to learn and to behave themselves in school? Well, that's what the Royalty Approach to Education (RATE) is all about. It believes that paying students for a combination of good academic performance and behavior is a good method for 21st Century education reform. The creator of RATE had been teaching for decades and became frustrated with the many failures of diverse methods in education. He believed that there was another way apart from the Piagets, the Maslows, the Bruners, the Watsons, the Hunters, the Gardeners, the Blooms, and the myriads that have emerged over the past 20 years, including those that have become so popular today. Instead, he looked as the idea of a parent telling Johnny that he will be paid $5 for every "A" he brings home next semester from school. Or he looks at a mother telling little 5-year-old Peggy that she cannot get eat her ice cream after dinner until she has eaten her vegetables. Or Lester who wanted to go to a school dance but his father, Mr. Parker, said that he must cut the lawn thoroughly before he can go. If they wanted something, they had to work for it. Sometimes it is money, other times it is ice cream and at times it is the privilege to imitate John Travolta. These were the "clips" that started the Royalty Approach to Education (RATE). What if we were to accumulate a series of privileges and rewards for students and make them work hard to get them? What if a bathroom pass becomes a Priward that students can work to receive? Other students will have to wait for permission from the teacher to go to the bathroom, but the special ones (the Royalties who have been selected) simply have to inform the teacher that they are going to the bathroom and get the permission slip from the teacher. Then, what if teachers looked around and found many things that can become Priwards and have students work to get them; things that will cost the teacher and the school nothing. Such as the right to be the "Teacher's Pet" for a week. This is what started the Royalty Approach to Education (RATE) 7 years ago and it has mushroomed into a very organized structure with philosophies, rules and regulations that make up its infrastructure. This year, RATE started another extension of services; it is now beginning to give students actual monetary Priwards based on the same basic principles: Students go home and study, go back to school, get a good grade and be on their best behavior and they will get a chance to win some money. The program is called the Royalty Approach Weekly (RAW). The main aim of RATE and everything associated with it is to increase the time that students spend at home studying. See it all at www.RoyaltyApproach.com.

Priwards in RATE

Priwards is a new word created by the author of the Royalty Approach to Education (RATE). The creation of that unique word became necessary because there was a need to distinguish between rewards that were "privileges" (such as the right to sit at a special table in the classroom) and a "reward" (such as a pencil, a book bag or a pen). The word was therefore created as a combination of the word "privileges - Pri" and "rewards- wards." Priwards are therefore material and non-material privileges and rewards that students receive every day for a combination of academic excellence and good behavior. The higher the value of the Priwards, the more students will tend to go home and study and return to school to be on their best behavior. Read it all at RoyaltyApproach.com.

Does anyone know what to do with education?

As a teacher, it gets so very confusing. There is the very popular philosophy that has been going around for a number of years (perhaps decades) that the problem in education is "bad" teachers and they should find a way to get the rid of them. Therefore, "the powers that be" keep shifting things around to accommodate their objective of blaming the problem on bad (ineffective) teachers. But does anyone really know what the problem is and where the blame should be? Because that unanswered question still persists, teachers are daily faced with different conflicting information and strategies from a very confused hierarchy that really does not know what to do. So, at any given meeting, teachers are told something quite different from a previous meeting and there is no explanation (or a made-up explanation) for the reason. For example, we were told that we should follow the Pacing Guide to teach our students and that we should consider it as the "bible" for our content to instruct students. So we did, for months. A week before the test, the administrators informed us that, "oooops, the test will not be aligned with the Pacing Guide!!!" What is a teacher to do?! You give the teacher a set of instructions to follow because, of course, you believe that the teacher is not capable of doing it on his or her own. He's ineffective. Then when the teacher follows the instructions the system gives him, the system changes its mind at the last minute. But, the teacher is still to be blamed. That's why I believe that the problem is not about having bad teachers, it is that students are not studying at home. The system keeps looking for the source of the problem in the teachers when they might be missing the mark right in front of them. That's why I created the Royalty Approach to Education (RATE) and the Royalty Approach Weekly (RAW) to help solve that problem. See them at www.RoyaltyApproach.com.

Shifting the blame from teachers

Education today is replete with problems. Many of those problems are directly linked to the performance of students. Many have ascribed those problems to the lack of competent teachers. I created the Royalty Approach to Education because I firmly believe that the problems lies elsewhere. The fact is that students are not studying at home and this is a problem that teachers all over are experiencing. The Royalty Approach was specifically designed to address that very basic problem. See it all at www.RoyaltyApproach.com.

What the Royalty Approach to Education does

The Royalty Approach to Education (RATE) believes that among the biggest problems that we have in education is that students are not studying at home. It has therefore developed an entire program to help to increase the time students spend at home studying. www.RoyaltyApproach.com.

The Royalty Approach to Edcuation (RATE)

In 2005, as a teacher, I created the Royalty Approach to Education (RATE). I did so because I was looking for a way to help solve the many problems that we have in education. Today, I have reach the stage of having a website about RATE (www.RoyaltyApproach.com) and I am just starting with a blog.