Intrinsic Motivation and Education
All Things Consider — By Daniel Strauss on February 16, 2010 at 5:05 pmSarah Firisen over at 3 Quarks Daily wrote a fantastic post on the kinds of things we need to do to improve education in America. She thinks that we need to do away with the emphasis on standardization and rote memorization and work with children’s intrinsic motivation:
It is possible to tap into someone’s internal, intrinsic motivation by reinforcing their internal story of the kind of person they are, asking them, “Why are you doing this work? What moves you about it? What gives you the satisfaction of a job well done? What makes you feel good about yourself?
Sadly, the current structure of the system isn’t conducive to teaching that works with intrinsic motivation; it relies heavily on external rewards. What people need to realize is that internally motivated work is both more fulfilling and more likely to drive creativity, innovation, and progress. Even if you have an instrumental view of education, i.e., that its primary purpose is to drive technological progress, improve employment, etc., intrinsic motivation is the best game in town. It’s the best tool to get both happy workers and productive work.
–Aaron Bekemeyer
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2 Comments
Aaron- great thoughts. If you are not aware you might take a look at alfiekohn.org who writes about this issue! Thx.
Thanks. Alfie Kohn looks really interesting. I’m particularly intrigued by his ideas that standardized testing discriminates against lower social classes and that competition is not in fact a productive force. I’m also pretty impressed by the sorts of people who endorse him – Dr. Spock, Noam Chomsky, and Carl Rogers, to name a few. Sounds like somebody I should look into!