Old school commitment device. Literally.

Akrasia
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I just had a conversation with a 69yr old former teacher about school (German Gymnasium). She used to be in a class about ancient Greek and told me that they had a very awesome teacher. Every day they did a recap of some part of the vocabulary and if you didn’t know just a single word or one meaning of a word you had to write down the entire page’s content.
Eventually this would hit everybody and of course no one wanted to copy an entire page. Also the pupils didn’t want to endure the shame of being tasked with this in front of the entire class, though eventually everybody would get their turn.
And it struck me that this is an example for a commitment device! It moves the distant consequences of not learning your vocabulary close to you.

Now go and marvel at this topic’s title. I’ll wait.

I’m so proud of it! :upside_down_face:

You know of any old fashioned commitment devices like that?

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I’m not sure this is a commitment advice but rather an example of harsh punishment scheme. I am under the assumption that a commitment device is defined by the person making the commitment. The students had no say in the formation of this rule. It was enforced by their teacher. In fact, the students had no say in participating in school! :smiley:

That said, cool title. I see what you did there. :slight_smile:

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But if you imposed it yourself, it would be a good one.

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