How To Get Kids To Do Chores. Start them when they're very young, and motivated to help out, even though they're incompetent, instead of waiting until they're competent and you have to force them. The article calls this the "Maya method", which makes me mad, as if not forcing each other to do shit is the crazy idea of one weird culture, and not the way of the whole universe outside of Homo sapiens in the last few thousand years.]]>...the practice of grading, and ranking, students is so widespread as to seem necessary, even though many researchers say it is highly inequitable. For example, students who come into a course with little prior knowledge earn lower grades at the start, which means they get a lower final average, even if they ultimately master the material. Grades have other problems: They are demotivating, they don't actually measure learning and they increase students' stress.