Put on the Brakes

I had a presentation last semester at Luther about motivation. There are different kinds of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. I think most of us can guess what those mean. Intrinsic, is internal motivation, extrinsic is external motivation. Duh?! TIME magazine recently published a story about paying students to succeed in classrooms. I think this idea is preposterous! One of the problems with our schools is in fact that students are unmotivated. I am not denying that fact. However, the way to fix this problem is not through monetary, extrinsic motivation.

Think about it. What information do you remember from school as a child? Was it the useless facts drilled into your head? Or was it the time on the playground when you discovered worms with your friends so you decided to dig some up and bring them to your teacher? I'm willing to bet it was the second option, or some similar situation. By starting education so vigorously so early in life, I believe we are causing students to lose the ambition to learn.

If we could only put on the brakes for a few more years and give students the opportunity to WANT to learn, I think we could be doing a huge favor for all future students. As my class heard in a homeschooling presentation, students can learn 'basic' information very quickly if it is presented at the right time. This allows them more time to explore what they want to learn about.

If as educators we want to promote life-long learning, then learning should be on the students terms. Intrinsic motivation should be the key. If a student doesn't want to learn. Don't force them to. Once they get bored of video games and television, they may just start to seek information on their own. Then is the time to act. We need to stop forcing education, stop paying children to act like we want them to, and foster that intrinsic motivation that is sadly lacking in our country.

If we can accomplish this, students will no longer be dreading school and looking forward to summer, but will use their time to learn more. Simply because they will be intrinsically motivated to learn on their own in ways that suit them.