Drive By Daniel Pink could be one of the most interesting books I've read. If any of you out there havent read it, I challenge you over the next few months to read it (on top of all that we already do).
This book contains insight into the world of motivation. What makes you and I different when completing a task. It poses many questions as to how and why we are teaching the way we teach when we all know that sitting in a desk for 8 hours a day is nothing but brain cells getting in the habit of not firing. What this book does not do however is give us a solution to how to motivate our students more.
Here is the connection I've made thus far (only 3 chapters in). People are either born with an intrinsic ability to be motivated and excited about things they are interested in, and the other half of us are not born with this ability. Thus, why the use of insentives has come into the coorporate world. Also why the government is flirting with the idea of Teacher insentive Funds which would pay teachers based on performance. Here is my question, how do we get those students to be motivated to learn that lack the intrinsic motivation? Yes, we can make the content matter to them, and yes we can be the performers up in front of the classroom ( we are competing with the x-box afterall) and yes we can give treats. But at the core of me, I feel like its a switch that has got to be in the home. If we want our students to be motivated to learn, learning has to be important to them.
All in all, I am beginning to realize that my role of a teacher through reading Teach Like a Champion, Drive and other teacher related materials is that it is my job to not only teach content, manage behavior, teach specific skills, teach life skills, but to now also teach students how to be motivated, to be successful in order to pass the benchmark exams that rachel is refers to in her post. Phew! We have alot to accomplish, good thing were all so dedicated!
If I remember Drive, it wasn't that people were born with or without instrinsic motivation it was that we all had it at one point (look at how inquisitive babies and little children are) and society kind of squelches it with the expectations of doing school and life "properly" and therefore sort of extinguishing it. Our job is to find a way to rekindle the spark of inquisitiveness an intrinsic motivation that is now missing. You make some really great points here!
ReplyDeleteI struggle with the idea that it is our job to motivate them. I want to motivate them at times but not everything in life is going to be fun and sometimes you just have to buckle down and do it. I want to teach them that there are natural consequences for lack of motivation or drive and teach it early. I want them to appreciate what we have in our country that other countries don't have and teach them it's a privilege to have an education.
ReplyDelete