The practice of depending
on school rewards instead of interest in subject matter is largely
responsible for superficial knowledge and lack of ability to think as
well as to act. As schools fail to incite the interest of the children
they train them to put through this and that task and reward them for
it without having added to their power of undertaking tasks on their
own account. Indeed, as they fail to give them the chance to do that,
they actually decrease whatever power they may have had.
The doing of tasks in factories for the sake of rewards, gives the
workers experience in winning rewards. As they are interested only
in the reward, they carry away no desire or interest in the work
experience. As the method of doing the work is prescribed in every
detail and their only requirement, under scientific management, is to
follow directions with accuracy, they are trained to do their tasks as
the children in school are trained. They are trained in routine, and
to do each task as it is given. This is not education, it is training
to do tricks. The worker does not take over what can be called
experience from one task to another. He forms certain motor habits,
called skill. But under the efficient methods of scientific management
the acquirement of this skill is robbed even of the educational value
that it had under the unscientific method of factory work, which
within its limited field, left the worker to discover by trial and
error what were the best methods of getting results.
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