The Aristocratic Classroom

BY: Chris Wehner

(Note: fellow teachers I have shared this with thought I should submit the findings of this simulation to a journal, as I simply don’t have the time to refine it I am posting it here on my blog. I welcome responses!)

I teach American Government to high school seniors in Western Colorado. I recently did a simulation where I instituted a “Grade Tax” on my class for 7 days. The results of the simulation were intriguing. Student morale and work slacked, effort and scores suffered, and frustration and angst set in. The students were not aware that it was a simulation and that afterward their grades would be restored.

The reason for doing this simulation was twofold: First, we were in the middle of discussing how and why economic systems develop alongside political systems; Second, to see what happens when a grading system based on Capitalism or Free Market principles (competition and rewards) is removed and replaced with a Redistributive/socialist (collective) system.

After giving this simulation serious thought I realized how I approached it was the key. First, the students had to believe that it was real. I did so by privately emailing the parents and asking for their cooperation, and to play along. As far as I know, all did and some did so with enthusiasm. Second, I wanted the students to see that what we were doing was for the greater good of the class. They could, indeed, succeed as a class.

I started by showing my students the grade averages and current distribution of points: The upper 5% of my class had amassed the total number of points possible. The upper 20% had capitalized 90% and so on, until I found that the lower 20% or so was just getting by at 60% average of possible points. I then explained that this was not their fault. These students, without naming them of course, were disadvantaged. They had evening jobs, less study time, and not the same access to technology and resources. Some, I theorized, came from less advantaged families and social environments not conducive to good study habits. The grading system was failing them.

When I finished I observed some students smiling and very pleased with my rationale, but most were either in disbelief or outright dismayed.
I then outlined my plan.

From this point on, I told them, I was taxing those students who earned more than 85% on any given assignment. But this wasn’t enough, so I immediately hit the class with a Grade Revenue Tax and then I showed them on the overhead projector that I wasn’t kidding. There in my electronic Grade Book was an entry for a “Grade Tax” where I had already taxed those upper 20% of students and redistributed their points to the bottom 60%. The 20% at the curve were unaffected, for now.

I was able to show the class we went from a wide range of grades to a common grade of about 80% for the entire class. Everyone was succeeding with a B in the class. No one would freeze to death, I told them. (This last comment was greeted with confused looks, but more on that later.)

This produced a combined uproar of celebration and consternation. Some students under their breath steamed with some disparaging words for their teacher. A few commented that this wasn’t true and if it was, their parents would be calling the Principle in the morning. One cried out that I would be fired.

I then told them of the sad story of a 93-year-old World War II medic who froze to death in his Bay City, Michigan home. After 50 years of paying his bill on time and unable to get out of his house, no one at the power company thought to call and check on him when his payment was late. He had the cash, over 600K in assets. But the power company did not know this and did not care. He was 2 months behind and so His power was turned off in the middle of one of the coldest months of the year. A man with no surviving children, a war hero, was rewarded by slowly and painfully freezing to death from hypothermia. Cold dispassionate capitalism and greed killed a war hero. This story had a deep impact on my class; you could hear a pin drop.

I next told them about the horrifying case of a man who fatally shot his wife, five young children and then himself after he and his wife lost their jobs. Here was a family man, a good man, crippled with the thought of financial ruin, and so turned a gun on his wife and children, before taking his own life. Victims of a society dominated by competition and greed I said, after all, that house will be for sale before long and at a great price for someone else. I have to admit that this last comment produced a reaction of horror from most of the class.

These are but two stories, I said, in a long line of sad cases. Our Free Market Capitalism wasn’t there for them. There was no collective system that made sure the power would remain on. The government failed these people. We will not do the same in regards to our fellow students, I proclaimed!

The looks of sadness on my student’s faces made me think that some of them were willing to give this a try, and indeed some were. But I suspect that they were mourning something else: the loss of freedom.

I immediately handed out the first assignment under the Grade Tax and the students finished it before the bell, all performing in line with how they had thus far achieved.

Let’s flash forward.

Day Three.

Assignment number three and behavior and work habits for most students had begun to drastically change. Many good students began to slack, while slacker students enjoyed their good fortune.

Students no longer expressed dismay and most seemed to accept that the Grade Tax was here to stay. (Most likely as their parents were not calling in complaining, this mystified several conservative students.) So apparently those convinced their parents would come to their rescue were still in shock. Some continued to work hard, but for the most part the class was changing.

Assignments turned in were sloppily or poorly performed, or not even completed. Though this was not unusual to have some assignments handed in like this, but the students who were not finishing or doing work was. Some of the high performing students began to perform in line with the average. Why work any harder?

I then announced to the students that the Grade Tax had to be increased in order to meet the needs of the sudden lowered performance of the class. Moans and shrugs from the students.
The Grade Tax was now for anyone in the 80% range. I told my students some were in danger of freezing and we could not allow this. I encouraged them to work harder and that as a class we can all succeed, and together we can get better. We just had to work harder and together we can raise our grade and achieve success!

By Day 5 things were getting bad. Students were making appointments with their counselors attempting to drop my class. Parents emailed that students were very upset, but they still supported and appreciated my simulation. However, they did enquire as to when exactly it would end?

Day 7, final day.

Test time. Our unit test and once again the Grade Tax was in play. The mood as the students strolled in was somber, peaceful. Accepting. Let’s get it over with seemed the temperament of most.

The finished their exam and handed it in. I graded them that night.

Several weeks before student performance on our unit test was overall far better than this one. Things had gotten really bad for the collective good. We would have to lower our standards.

Only 2 students earned above a B on the exam with only 14 spare points to redistribute. To get the class up to a B average I would have needed 122 extra points (it was a 60 point exam) to distribute among the class of 28 just to maintain a B- average. This would have resulted in us borrowing the points from another class. That was not an option I told them, so I lowered the Grade Tax floor and reduce the target collective grade from a B to a C. As a collective, we were starting to fail on a grand scale.

I realized that the simulation was ending at a good time, only 7 days into it.

True some students never took it too seriously, but most did. And overall the simulation did exactly what I had predicted it would do. The Grade Tax produced failure and it encouraged it. No one earned anything, they only received. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that without incentive, there is little to work for. Performance suffers.

Students want to be rewarded for their work. In a collective distribution system, some undoubtedly will be rewarded more than others. Failure is ultimately rewarded.

Thomas Jefferson once wrote about the “Pursuit of Happiness.” Notice he did not say “to Have Happiness.” Like it or not, a competitive environment with incentive and rewards works better than the alternative.

There is a natural aristocracy in the world, as there is in the classroom, and not all are guaranteed success. But they are guaranteed the right to pursue it if they wish. This simulation was obviously not scientific or perfect, but it does illustrate the point. When students were not allowed to succeed as individuals, they were guaranteed to fail as a group.
When I informed my students that this had been a simulation I could feel the relief from them. Some students announced that they knew it all along, but for the most part there was mutual joy with the announcement.

I had each student write a reflection asking them to openly express how they responded to the Grade Tax. Almost 90% of the students stated that they started to not work as hard, even those who were receiving the “benefits” of someone else’s points.

This became a teachable moment on several levels. First, competition is a natural act and to remove it removes something from human nature, that instinct to succeed; or at least the desire to. Second, even those students who benefited admitted that the added bonus rarely encouraged them to try harder. It simply was not that important to them. What was important to them was still doing as little as possible.

The classroom must reflect human nature, let alone the real world.