Job Discussion Forums

[basbas]

You see a lot of threads on here about somebody who leaves a school or is having problems with their school. They are usually asking for advice on something (for example what they should do if their school doesn't pay, i'll come back to this in a moment) Anyway the answers the get are usually either to slag the employer or alternatively to slag the teacher. By doing this we descend into a 'moral' discussion. This isn't useful, perhaps it's worthwhile for other reasons but it doesn't help with the real goal which at least in my mind is to help FTs maximize their outcomes...

So what's the answer then? dispense with the moral discussion (for now) and lets try to move to something a little bit more objective...

If we instead of looking at the FT and the school owner as 'moral agents' trying to be moral, and rather we could look at them as 'economic agents' who are trying to maximize gains. Hence the idea of a game theoretic approach. A word about game for those who may not know about it...Game Theory is a field of mathematics that is now almost a hundred years old and began in Austria by a group of mathematicians and economist who were interested in games and more specifically situations of conflicts between agents trying to maximize gains in a predetermined forum. As the story goes, the interest was sparked by a question like 'what is the best strategy for an agent in something like the poker to maximize his chances of winning?' Game theory developed through the 20th century and in some senses culminated with the Mathematician John Nash (the movie 'a beautiful mind' staring Russell Crow is about him) He created the 'prisoner dilemma ' which was a very interesting way of looking at situations of conflict. (see bellow) Game theory has been used in a variety of applications most concern either strategic/military situations (the arms race) or economic situation (price stability among competitors)

so my question then is this? Could we apply this to the situation between FTs and school owners. I have been sketching out the following prisoners dilemma for our situation. If you are familiar with the prisoners dilemma continue but if your not you might consider spending 15-20 mins on wiki to familiarize yourself with the prisoners dilemma and game theory more generally.

I am reminded by of what one of my teachers once said. Francois Lepage, who gave me a seminar entitled 'special topics in mathematics' where we studied the history of game theory, suggested if you are interested in applying Game theory to a phenomenon the best way to proceed if the situation is sufficiently complex is to apply techniques like the the prisoners dilemma and others to small parts of the situation at first in peace meal fashion and start combining them to arrive at a broader and more general analysis. So I propose we do just that. What I am going to do is the following. First I am going to make some broad comments about game theoretic relations and who they apply to our situation, second I'm going to construct a prisoners dilemma for a very specific situation that many FTs face, finally I'm going to show what lessons we can draw from this about the appropriate courses of action.

The situation I propose can be accurately summed up under the tittle of our prisoners dilemma "RUNNERS AND CHEATERS". I'm mostly going to concentrate on the the moves the FT can and should make, the interesting thing about game theory is that we can always flip it to get the other perspective, I guess some school might see it but oh well.

our game is as follows, the agents are the school owner and the FT. And they can each make one choice one way or the other.

the School owner can decided to pay the FT or not for work already done so the FT starts say on Jan 1st his first pay day is feb 1st.

The FT can chose to walk away from the contract or not, that is at any point before or after getting paid any month he can bolt and pull a runner.

so what does this give us as a matrices? lets take a look:

so we basically get four situations because it's binary (they each make a choice that has only two possible outcomes thus together you can get four possibilities

situation 1: the owner fails to pay on feb 1st and the FT runs
situation 2: the owner pays on feb 1st and the FT runs
situation 3: the owner pays on feb 1st and the FT does not run
situation 4: the owner fails to pay on feb 1st and the FT does not run.

so this gives us the following matrices which you can use as a quick reference.

1=P/R 3=P/~R
2=~P/R 4=~P/~R

P stands for pay, R stands for run, Just remember when you are looking at the table the fraction X/Y represents the choices the agents the way i set it up the owner is always on the top and the FT is always on the bottom (yes, laugh it up guys) the Tilda '~' just means 'not'.

What's really interesting about our problem is that it's a monthly payment so that immediately makes it possible to make our game iterative (multiple rounds) which means that past behavior can have an effect on choices the players make in future games this is exactly what we want.

so what lessons can we draw from this, well let's take a look at the table, clearly situation 3 is preferable for everyone but we are just looking at the FT's moves, so clearly situation 4 is terrible for the FT because he has just worked a month for free and he is not terminating the contract thus preparing to work for free for another month (march 1st may roll around and he may not get paid again) So it's clear for a game theoretic approach that if you are not being paid then you should walk away as soon as possible. The other side of this coin however is that if the owner knows you are going to run (for whatever reason) he should thus cheat you on your money if he knows you will bail.

Anyway this is some of my thinking these days if people are interested we could keep developing this, i admit it needs a little work still a little imprecise and may need to simplified more, maybe this isn't the right situation to start with, maybe we need something simpler....

let me know what you think

[Miles Smiles]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

[Zero]

Here's the issue: If you're good enough at math to properly apply game theory to ESL, then you shouldn't be in ESL. You can make more money teaching math, or make a lot more money applying math.

[big_big_bang_theory_fan]

[Zero]

Where did the OP claim to be the "objective authority"?

Read carefully and you'll notice that he/she used terms such as "at least in my mind," "I propose," "my thinking," "i admit it needs a little work," and "let me know what you think."

Pedantic, a complete bore and possessing only minimal contact with reality? Definitely. Claiming to be the objective authority? Probably not.

[DosEquisX]

Only problem with this is that it's common sense.

[Lobster]

This approach definitely oversimplifies the situation, and would be very cumbersome if all the factors were included. While game theory may apply well to a restricted set such as a card game, it doesn't do well coping with the vagaries and complexities of human interactions.

You have a good idea when it comes to getting away from the preachy types who tend to like to throw blame around and smear either all schools or FTs. It's best to give practical advice based on an individual situation without weighing in with the holier-than-thou morality.

RED

[basbas]

[MisterButtkins]

too much text in the OP. I try to keep the amount I read under 200 words/day. It's bad for the eyes and can turn you into a nerd if you do it too much.

[askiptochina]

Before I read about the prisoner's dilemma, I read your question as a legal matter. Then, I wondered how a judge or jury would play into this because they are the ones who would be the end criteria for whether or not:

1. A teacher should have left/not left
2. A school should have paid/not paid

In this case, there is no game but presentation. In poker, you can lie about the truth to mislead your opponent, but to win a case you have to bring all evidence to court for both sides to argue over. The transparency in working conditions does not seem to match the deception seen in game play. For example, we sign a contract with terms and conditions as if we were partners in a game. We do not sign a contract that we will not wink or stare during a game.

Then, I read about it, and I see it's different than just a legal proposition (though if any legal recourse could be taken, those actions would override any game play making all this pondering useless and meaningless).

The problem with comparing the prisoner's dilemma with a school and ESL teacher is that from the start, these two are working against each other. However, 2 prisoners would start out on the premise that they both wouldn't say anything or say the same story in order for both to come out ahead (thus working together, opposite of teacher with employer). It's not a tug-o-war as seen with employer and employee conflicts.

The employer can't give half the money owed and have it magically double in the employee's hands. I guess they could go to a casino and maybe win enough so that both the employee and employer would have the same money. But as I stated, they are already working against each other from the start. So, the employer wouldn't give any extra winnings to the employer, but pocket it instead. The prisoners however, if let out, wouldn't rat each other out after being let out.

I like the idea of game theory being applied though, just not with the prisoner's dilemma. I think Pascal's Wager (religious game theory?) would be closer to what a teacher is facing. Should they give up something finite for something more later on, or should they stick to their guns and risk infinite loss (banishment from the mainland)?

What if we go back to the prisoner dilemma, there is another way to look at this where the school and teacher would be working together actually, but legal issues would not be able to influence this. I'll explain later Thursday night or Friday. See what you guys come up with.

[waxwing]

[jaydizzle]

tl;dr

[askiptochina]

Hint: Think parents, not employer. See you later.

[max.a]

http://www.radiolab.org/2010/dec/14/

This is an old podcast of Radiolab, in which the hosts look at the results of a worldwide software development tournament that occurred during the Cold War in which developers had to create the code that would fare the best in a "Prisoner's Dilemma."

The format was "round-robin" in which each developer's code played each of the other codes 200 times.

In our case, the "prisoners" are the company and the teacher, each with the choice to "turn in" the other. In the round-robin computer code tournament, each code acted as one "prisoner."

For example, an "all-good" code would never choose to "turn-in" the opponent, we'll call that the "Jesus Code." And likewise, an "all-bad" code we'll call the "Devil Code."

The podcast really explains the exciting and interesting aspects of the historical tournament played during the Cold War on an old (massive) computer in Illinois (I think).


The winner was a simple code called "Tit-for-Tat" that regarded it's each move on the movement of the previous move by the opponent. The code was only two lines.

The first line defined only the first move of the 200 that would take place in the tournament, and required the "Prisoner" to act like Jesus and not turn in the opponent.

The second line is more interesting, and required the "Prisoner" to play the previous move of the opponent.

So, if you want to win the game (provide yourself the best chance of getting out of the most trouble), play the move that was played on you most recently.

But, there's a catch...

After the computer tournament, the computer ran a type of hereditary evolution to determine what would be the best code that could exist under the limits and rules of the "Prisoner's Dilemma" and revealed that although "Tit-For-Tat" was perhaps the best given code, a better, more evolved code would require the "Prisoner" to change it's code every 1/10....1/20....1/30 moves (probably to avoid detection of the "mimic code" from the opponent).

In other words, start off any conflict like "Jesus," if they "play the Devil" on you, you're screwed. The next conflict, play the Devil on them. The paradox is that if 2 Tit-For-Tat methods were played against one another, only one outcome would matter, the first, and the only way to get out of a Two-Tit-For-Tat (in which two "Prisoners" playing Eye for an Eye) outcome is to react the opposite once every few turns, so...

unless you've had 200 or more (I'm speculating, maybe more like 10) spats with an employer in which both parties (Prisoners) had something to lose, you should be playing Tit-for-Tat, beginning "nice", taking an eye for an eye after each time you've been "turned-in" or "screwed" (or relaxing your heavy hand of justice when they do too) and then mixing up your responses every few chances you get.

Here's my advice. Find the last time the employer has had their fortune tied up in you, and do what they did. If it occurred again, they having the chance to "turn you in," do the opposite.



Wow, I hope this makes sense. Listen to the podcast for an interpretation.

[askiptochina]

I don't understand why Jesus is being compared to the prisoner. I thought we were supposed to be forgiven for our sins. So, it would seem more likely we would rat out the other person and request the police/judge be lenient in their sentencing.

I think to fit the prisoner's dilemma, the parents as a collective group (or any parents taking on the role of a leader within the group of parents) would be a prisoner, the teacher would be another prisoner, and it is the company that is the judge.

If the parents don't complain, the company doesn't find fault with the teacher. The game play could involve how much interaction the teacher gives students, the material they present, and how fun/interesting their classes are.