Education

Reading about Educational Psychology reminds me of a documentary I saw last. Year. The documentary was called Freakonomics. It is based on a best selling book by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Freakonomics is about the hidden truth of certain activities that happen that we do not question. For example , the idea of cheating. I know that most of us cheated in some way or form before. I bet that you would not believe that a school teacher has something in common with sumo wrestlers. I was surprised when I found out my self. I will not go into full details about this but I recommend that you watch the documentary , read the both , or do both if you have the time.

Sumo wrestlers must win a certain amount of games to have many benefits. When you start as a sumo wrestler, you don't have many achievements. As you progress and win many matches, you move up. I think of it as a sub-class system in sumo wrestling. There are patterns to how a sumo wrestler wins or lose. This shows that sumo wrestlers cheat so that another can step up into a higher class status. I guess now your wondering how does that relate to teachers. Teachers usually give their students multiple choice questions. The answers to the exams are in a certain pattern where students can probably guess the answers if the teacher is using the same or similar pattern.

There was another section from Freakonomics where a school give students achievements for passing their class. The school focus was to help improve the grades of falling students. If they improved greatly in their classes, they would receive money and a limo ride. I kinda wish my school had this program but my grades did not really need improving. There where some students in the documentary that wanted to have these benefits. Some if not all worked greatly to try and achieve these awards. I guess people become more focus when they want something that they desire. This gives them the motivation to memorize and focus on their school work.