Even Stephven: Cash for Grades

For those of you who don’t know what Even Stephven is, here’s a clip:

I strongly recommend you to watch that clip, get a sense of what Even Stephven is, before you read on.


--------------------------------Even Stephven---------------------------------
Stephen: Tonight’s topic. Should we pay students for good grades? NO!

Steve: YES!

Stephen: NOOO!

Steve: YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!! You get pay for doing your job, and students should get pay for good grades.

Stephen: Steve, we are already paying them. We pay them in the forms of free lunch, free books, and free teachers. Why should we pay students to do something that they are supposed to do anyway? They are students; thus they should study. Just like I never paid the babysitters. It’s their job to baby-sit.

Steve: You have children?

Stephen: No, I just like to have high school girls at my place on Friday nights.

Steve: (Looked Confused) Anyway, I, unlike someone who sounds like a pervert sitting in front of me, care about students’ academic achievements. According to a recent study* students who participant in an incentive program also increase their participation in AP classes and receive higher scores on the exams.

Stephen: It is people like you that are making our country not the greatest in the human history. We are now the second greatest country in the human history, second to the U.S in the 60’s. Give students money for good grades will decrease their intrinsic motivation. Students who are intrinsically motivated to learn are persistent, happy, and challenges-driven. Money for grades will only create you a generation of test-taking machines. Yes, machine! I don’t want the terminator to lead our country or my state for that matter, in the future.

Steve: Intrinsic motivation? Have you been to a high school classroom recently? Those students are not intrinsically motivated whatsoever. By offering money, you are not damaging their intrinsic motivation because they have none! To give them money, you can at least jump start their motivation, and maybe later on, you can do your intriguing motivation thing.

Stephen: It’s intrinsic motivation.

Steve: Don’t you correct me! You judgmental, condescending piece of Sh..

Stephen: Watch your language, this is a class website not cable TV.

Steve: I am sorry.

Stephen: It’s ok. Incentive program will also increase the chance of cheating. I can see students trying to play the system, find the loophole, and then cash in. That’s not learning! That’s cheating! Do you want to create a group of cheaters?

Steve: Have you cheated before?

Stephen: Let’s not talk about me… (Act nervously)

Steve: Have you? Stephen? It’s ok. You can trust me. It’s just you and me here.

Stephen: ……(Long silent) I just wanted to pass kindergarten.

Steve: So, what did you do, Stephen? (Very motherly voice)

Stephen: (With tearing eyes) I wrote the alphabet on my panty.

Steve: Your WhAt?!!?!

Stephen: I am Stephen Colbert.

Steve: And I am Steven Carell.

Stephen/Steve: This has been Even Stephven



*Jackson, C., K., (2007). A little now for a lot later: A look at a Texas advanced placement incentive program www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp107.pef

-SEAN KAO, ED261