Should we pay students to do well in school?

Alli: noodle55.wordpress.com
Ryan: ryebread1414.wordpress.com
Angela: angeladodge.blogspot.com

When I first heard this idea the first thought that popped into my head was "Is this for real?" I can't believe that education has turned into a money business. While I can see why some people argue for this, I on the other hand am mostly against this idea. I read Ryan, Alli and Angela's blogs this week. Ryan was the only one out of these three that thought this was a good idea. He made a good point when he argued that with this program students would have money for college and it would give them a head start in their lives. While I agree that money would help students attend college, I also believe that without the intrinsic reward of learning students will fail in the long run. If they enter the real world only knowing to work hard for money they will eventually hit a brick wall and realize they are unhappy with their lives. Alli makes a good point when she says that students need to be motivated by their mastery goals rather than their ego goals. If students only work hard to make money we are teaching them that money is more important than learning and improvement. While I realize that many people get jobs for the money, there are a lot of people who choose their career based on what they are interested in and love doing. By implementing this program into schools, these students will no longer see the value in what they are learning. They will be taught to learn so that they can make money. Education is meant to help expand the human mind and learn and grow to be prepared for the future and life decisions. We can not expect children to discover the love of learning and self-improvement on their own. We need to enforce the power of happiness and self-fulfilment in learning rather than focus on grades and rewarding students with money. Angela brings up the fact that the money that students would be receiving for good grades would probably come from the taxes of citizens. I know that this would make me very unhappy as a United States citizen to know that I was supporting this cause. I really hope that this new policy does not become popular in schools today. In my opinion, we need to go back to the rewards of learning, self-fulfilment and the main purposes of education.