Should we pay kids to do well in school?

Would it work?-- Should schools have honor roll?-- Is learning valuable for its own sake?-- And if it is, how can we get kids to value it as such?-- What are we doing wrong?

To pay or not to pay? Particularly in lower-income districts with histories of struggling students, public school systems from New York City to Texas have taken to incentivizing students to strive for attendance and high grades through a variety of cash payments and expensive goodies. But is it a good idea for schools to provide material rewards for academic performance?

For many of us, the idea of mixing the classroom space with cold hard cash brought up an initial shuddering of sorts. The YSR, ever-true champions of intellectual inquiry, were quick to advocate for the sacredness of learning for learning’s sake. The thought of introducing monetary motivation into the realm of schooling deeply disturbed us, as it seemed to threaten the idea of pre-college education as a “sacred space” for intellectual growth free from the pressures of pre-professionalism.

Yet while the Roundtable held these truths to be self-evident, discussants reminded us of the issue at hand was not isolated to theoretical ideals but rather also to a real life, rather extreme reality- that of currently-failing schools and struggling students. Perhaps the dire conditions of certain public schools, ones in which entering classes of 400 dwindled to around 150 by graduation, and ones located as nearby as our own New Haven, were harsh realities that those from more privileged backgrounds needed to be reminded of. In these cases, school policymakers acted with a more pressing goal in mind – prior to being able to the elevation of a sacred space, school systems needed to ensure the survival of that space in the first place by keeping kids from dropping out of schools and saying goodbye to their future chances of climbing up the socioeconomic ladder. Another roundtabler adamantly stressed that these incentivizing initiatives amounted to an emergency project with the goal of lowering the income gap, a cause so important that the benefits of such projects must outweigh objections to it.

Yet of course, qualms remained, especially when, for argument’s sake, we considered the idea of expanding the payment-for-school idea more broadly. The roundtable agreed that promoting the commoditization of educational performance and a culture that devalues genuine intellectual passion be avoided as much as possible. Additionally, the incentive payments could at best be just a short-term solution to larger problems in the American school system. Thus even those who advocated for the incentive programs in the case of failing schools generally agreed that the benefits of such programs only outweighed their setbacks in the most dire cases.

Other roundtablers still maintained that in such situations the ends still failed to justify the means. Yet perhaps objections to the incentive program could be reconciled not just on grounds of their practical benefits, but on a fundamental level as well. Our greatest gut objections came from the thought of the crudeness of monetary payments sullying one’s motivations for intellectual accomplishment. Yet a roundtabler pointed out that even many of the most driven “good students” to a large extent have craved and been motivated by external recognition of some sort, even if not monetary. Recognition and the promise of future reward are inexplicably tied to the motivation and behavior of nearly all of us. Perhaps in the case of low-income, struggling students the small cash payments and free ipods represented the form of sorely-lacked recognition and encouragement that could speak to them most and that could most effectively plug the “recognition gap” between them and their more well-off counterparts.

For some roundtablers, financial rewards for school still remain an impermissible violation of the sacred space of education. Yet for others, they remained the best way to give certain kids a fighting chance of staying within it.

Should minorities be allowed to make their own laws?

--What are the limits of tolerance in liberal societies? --What amounts to signing a social contract?--When can community self-determination supersede individual rights claims?

Are the identities and cultures of minority groups valuable? "Yes," said the roundtable, affirming a sentiment perhaps difficult to disagree with. But should religious and tribal groups be allowed to sacrifice their goats, marry their cousins, or engage in cannibalism within the borders of the US? "Uhh...No," said the group.

For such cases, it was relatively to judge that a national government's duty to prevent egregious violations of human and animal well-being would trump cultural claims to their legitimacy. Yet beyond extreme examples, the group considered whether more efforts should be made to legally accommodate the cultural practices of minority groups. Roundtablers agreed that a good deal of value lay in allowing minority groups defined by some sort of cultural ties to preserve their customs and traditions. Since such represented a general "right" of these peoples to preserve these groups identity, free expression, and beliefs, a regard for such groups' "cultural rights" ideally should be represented with regards to the law.

How could such efforts be made? Should different laws apply to different segments of the populace… so as to accommodate those of different beliefs? One roundtabler noted that such a policy was adopted in India. For instance, turban-wearing Sikhs were allowed to carry daggers on their person while others were forbidden to. Perhaps such a policy was necessary to satisfy members of different religions. Yet the same roundtabler also pointed out that the policy could also deepen group divisions in a country by reinforcing differences.

Another discussant proposed that regional cultural differences could best be accommodated by increasing powers of local legislation. The national government would outline basic protections and guidelines, then allow local communities to decide the details of more specific cultural issues. Yet others noted the both logistical difficulties and fundamental problems with this concept. Someone asserted that certain issues, such as gay marriage or others pertaining to the rights of individuals, illustrated the case for uniform policies across the nation. Would it make sense for a couple be legally married in one state but fail to have that status, and the rights such represents, recognized in another? Additionally, dividing sovereignty from locale to locale could cause confusion when people desired to travel across borders and a feeling of disconnect between them akin to the creation of many different “nations” within the whole as geographical group divisions were reinforced.

Other roundtables yet considered the mechanisms of inclusion already existent in our democratic pluralist system. To a large extent, perhaps our status as a “melting pot” nation, long accustomed to many diverse groups, already makes us lean towards efforts of general inclusion; a roundtabler noted one example of multilingual election materials. Additionally, unlike France, the US only bans extreme public expression of religion such as preaching in schools. Perhaps for the needs of most religious and ethnic groups, American democratic politics is perhaps inclusive enough to accommodate a sufficient amount of uniqueness and variation.

Yet perhaps the cases of certain groups required different consideration, specifically those of indigenous groups such as the Aborigines or the Native Americans. The Roundtable noted that these groups might both require and merit more legal leeway than the regular political system could provide. For these groups, the need for greater autonomy was more clearly necessary for their needs of self-preservation since their cultures were so greatly divergent from the national mainstream; having their lifestyles governed by laws of the national norm would be too much of a threat to their cultural identities. These groups could have a compelling case for greater sovereignty within their territories since these groups had long desired to exist like separate nations even since the founding of the Australian and American states, respectively. Perhaps our right to intervene in such groups’ practices should be extremely limited since participation in their culture is a voluntary choice.

Perhaps the Roundtable thus stayed true to its American bias, firmly believing in the value of our “melting-pot”-“patchwork-quilt”-call-it-what-you-may nation to hash out its internal differences through a(n at least relatively) inclusive national political process. “Unity in diversity,” we say, except for Charlie’s Aborigines.

Should parents deceive their children about the existence of Santa Claus?

--Should parents ever lie to their children? --Is it healthy to encourage unrealistic expectations (like the notion of a prince charming)? --When should we choose happiness over truth? --Does Santa Clause actually exist?

"Ho ho ho" or "Bah humbug?" It was up to the Roundtable to decide in a session where, perhaps unsurprisingly, a discussion on society's relationship to Kris Kringle and other tales evolved into debates regarding the relative values of truth and ideals, the role and power of myth in society, and the acceptability of certain "noble lies," among other things.

We began with a discussion of the stories told to children. Were tales of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, fairy tales, and the like only little white lies told for the purpose of entertainment and enchantment? Were they just obvious mistruths, presented to those not yet old enough to know better or comprehend the world in its full complexity? (One would hope that ) all of us in the Roundtable agreed that gifts encountered in years past under Christmas trees or pillows were not in fact delivered by Santa, the Tooth Fairy, Hannukah Harry, or the Holiday Armadillo. Thus a belief in these figures' existence, and the elaborately-crafted stories around such, would be factually incorrect. But was the Kris Kringle question simply one of truth versus falsehood?

The roundtable thus could not help but to ponder for a while the nature of "truth," reality, and myth. Roundtablers considered viewing the stories of Santa Claus much like modern myths due to the elaborate stories surrounding the figure, the cultural and religious origins of the stories and traditions, and their deep and widespread presence in our culture. Along this vein, a roundtabler noted that the concept of myth versus truth perhaps was not simply one to be evaluated with logic alone; another noted that in many ways even adult American culture and society is still in many ways full of myth. In matters like the representation of national history and tradition, perhaps what is "true" could still remain somewhat ambiguous even in adult society; differing values could lead to differently-slanted stories of how things came to be. An example was the portrayal of great historical figures such from George Washington to Martin Luther King, Jr; over time perhaps the stories we have heard of their accomplishments and virtues have mythologized them in our consciousness, such that we could overlook certain less-convenient realities about them, such as alleged extramarital affairs of the latter.

This example shed some more light on the meaning of our Santa Claus storytelling. Perhaps even tales that we could easily identify as fantasy actually sought to convey another meaning beyond factual representation of events. After all, stories of Santa Claus in fact originated from Christian traditions and the underlying messages of rewards for good behavior and a benevolent judge of actions communicate clear moral values. While mythical stories that channel this spirit may be entirely fabricated, a roundtabler suggested that essence speaks to a sort of "human truth" comprised of morals, perhaps even a universal one along the lines of Carl Jung's considerations. More than serving as simply entertaining lies, certain childhood stories might serve as channels for the moral and cultural education of the young generation and reflect very much our own adult society's tendency to mythologize.

While telling childhood myths may have great power, the roundtable found it important to consider what was gained and lost through this practice. Should the possible instructive and cultural value of these stories be weighed against the aspect of distortion and deception that they entail? While childhood stories may seem to be an apt way to either teach lessons or explain complex ideas in an easily-digestible form, do parents really need to lie to their children in order to accomplish these goals? Would children be better off without these stories? The group agreed that an individual for whom credence in Claus remained unchallenged would certainly be ill-served. Yet for most of us our discovery of the "real world" seemed to inevitably occur in time as we (again, hopefully) matured. The group as a whole thus could not agree as to where to draw the line between the sacredness of Santa and any possible alternatives. Who knew Claus was so controversial?