We know clearly that there is a mismatch between what science knows and what we do in business and education. It’s time we stop looking to external factors to motivate people. It’s time we reawaken the intrinsic love of learning, exploring, creating and growing that motivated mankind for much of history. Let’s free our children from the yokes of points and scores, and adults from the prison of carrots and sticks. When you finish reading this, perhaps you can walk to the window or find an open space to clear your mind. Breathe in and remind yourself of your freedom to think on your own and find your intrinsic motivation to study, to work, to live! It’s there inside you. The deeper it may be buried the greater your joy when it is released.
And while at Veritas we recognize the value of grades and incentives to reward accomplishment and progress, we put more emphasis on cultivating student agency and internal motivation for sustainable success and happiness.
Since people are motivated by engaging their inherent curiosity for learning, as educators we need to find what interests students in terms of subjects and activities. Students respond best to learning which has personal meaning for them or touches on issues they have interest in.
This is also why—as I discussed in my article on Deep Learning—we engage students in the six global competencies of citizenship, character, collaboration, communication, creative thinking and critical thinking. When instruction and learning activities are focused within these dimensions (particularly creative and critical thinking as evidenced with the monkeys), intrinsic motivation is naturally stimulated.
We cannot create a curriculum that caters to every students’ individual needs, but we can create options and conditions in a school which matches up with their general interests. Then, when this ecology of natural curiosity is fully engaged within appropriate structure and sufficient options for courses of study, learning is independent of extrinsic rewards or punishments. Students learn because they enjoy the process inherently, and increasingly become agents of their education and growth.
The real rewards are internal and priceless, often leading to successful careers and value to society: A student who finds immense satisfaction from seeking mastery with a musical instrument or field of art, and later becomes a professional in their field; a student who channels their love of video games and design into becoming a programmer; a student who transforms their own personal challenges into becoming a successful psychologist; a student who because of ability to tell stories and influence others who becomes an entrepreneur or community leader.
What they “become” of course is not the point. It is more a question of how to enjoy and thrive in this journey of learning to learn, and learning to live.
最新评论