How's your New Year's Resolution going? Keeping those routines going? Forming those good habits? Maintaining that healthy diet? Exercising daily?
He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. --Friedrich Nietzsche
The trick to doing anything is first cultivating a desire for it. --Naval Ravikant
A recent project and interactions with peers have prompted a discussion and a pondering about intrinsic motivation. Much like New Year's Resolution, many times in school "motivation" is just someone else's goals or expectations cast upon students that they say or agree or attempt to try to achieve.
Why does learning have to be that way? Have we begun to tell students what their goals are without their input? Are students inspired by the results that are expected of them, whether by their parents, teachers, or peers? When did we shift in our approach to help students figure out what they wanted to do and help them achieve and instead utilize a standardized version of "you need to be a productive citizen and you need a college degree to do that well"?
Yes, there is a core curriculum/set of standards that is expected of students. But can't we figure out how to cover that by helping students figure out the why and a desire to even do it? And, that most likely means tapping into their own passions, using the areas where they already have a natural curiosity, and capitalizing on the momentum that creates to deepen learning.
A recent TikTok by a veteran Canadian teacher illustrated this point beautifully. To paraphrase, she waits until students arrive in the room each semester, and she gets to know them before determining the deliverables for her course. She uses their passions, curiosities, and creativeness to identify how to teach the curriculum and content in a way that engages the students. Maybe they love music--let's explore history through music. Maybe they are artistically inclined--a timeline mural where the included images/content must be researched and validated is pursued.
Do you want to know when I was really motivated to learn how to use excel, Canva, or any other program? It wasn't when I had to take the classes in school. It was when I wanted my professional creations to stand out and look polished. It was not until I had the desire to do it because I wanted to know why others' work looked better than mine and struggling through how to do that was the apex of learning.
And, isn't that what we ultimately want--we want students who struggle through the hows to understand the why, AND that is what learning is? We can't force intrinsic motivation on people. What we can do is help them develop a desire to answer the question, WHY.
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