Adventures By Design

My good friend Trent has been teaching in northern Canada for a couple years now. He’s been teaching middle school social studies, among other things. The school’s rural and many of its attendants are conservative farmers who don’t always have a strong appreciation for formal education.

In a reply to one of my posts Trent asked me for my thoughts on this question:

How do you intrinsically motivate students in grade 9 when they know that they could drop out at any time and not face any repercussions from parents. They have known this since grade 1 and have coasted and coasted.

Good question, and I’m tickled pink that you’d allow me the honor of answering it. Well, I guess the first thing I notice about this question is that there is a discord between intrinsic motivation and repercussions from parents. Intrinsic motivation happens when people do something because it brings them pleasure or it is important to them.³³ If the student is motivated to do well in school because of her fear of mom and dad, then while she may be motivated, it is not intrinsic.

I’m going to rephrase Trent’s question: how do you intrinsically motivate students when their parents don’t value education? I believe the problem is the perceived irrelevance of the curriculum. When students or parents ask the question, how does this subject matter connect to my life, they are often unable to find a satisfactory answer. And when no connection can be found, is it so unreasonable that they see school as a waste of time?

Thinking back to my own school days, I admit they have a point: I remember questioning the practicality and applicability of all the random incoherent information that I was forced to learn. Why did I have to learn algebra? How does this apply to the so-called real world? Pretty standard-issue question, right? And it has a standard-issue answer too: you never know what kind of path your life may take, and so it is best to give you a basic understanding of everything. Right now you may think you are going to be a world class soccer player, but if that doesn’t pan out, and you end up a nuclear physicist, you’ll be thankful you studied algebra in grade twelve.

Ready for the critique? Nuclear physics requires a level of mathematical competency so far beyond anything that grade twelve can provide that if you wanted to be an actual physicist you would still need to study for years more. Further, the body of knowledge expected to be mastered by a high school graduate has been going up steadily every year. I can remember my parents commenting on how “they learned this when they were in grade ten, not eight like you”. The point is that no matter how much we information we want our children to know by the time they finish grade twelve, they aren’t going to know even a fraction of what they will need to know for their future careers or university. This isn’t to say that our schools aren’t teaching enough content, but rather that the sum of human knowledge is immeasurably large and each field of study is meticulously specialized. Like a hamster running in a wheel, no matter how hard we push our kids, there is always more to learn. So, rather than requiring students to learn all kinds of stuff of dubious utility, why don’t we ask them to learn less quantity, but at a higher quality?

Returning to Trent’s situation, how can he motivate his students to learn? I don’t know, so I went out looking for some answers. I found this chart that describes the factors that promote internal motivation:

• challenge: People are best motivated when they are working toward personally meaningful goals whose attainment requires activity at a continuously optimal (intermediate) level of difficulty.
• curiosity: Something in the physical environment attracts the learner’s attention or there is an optimal level of discrepancy between present knowledge or skills and what these could be if the learner engaged in some activity.
• control: People have a basic tendency to want to control what happens to them.
• fantasy: Learners use mental images of things and situations that are not actually present to stimulate their behavior.
• competition: Learners feel satisfaction by comparing their performance favorably to that of others.
• cooperation: Learners feel satisfaction by helping others achieve their goals.
• recognition: Learners feel satisfaction when others recognize and appreciate their accomplishments.³³

So, we need to design a challenge that tweaks students’ curiosity, while challenging them to reach a meaningful goal. The challenge should place an element of control in the hands of students, while providing cooperation (and maybe competition… I’m hesitant about this) among students. Finally, students should be able to provide meaningful feedback on the work that their peers have done. I believe that when the students care about what they are doing, the opinions of their parents won’t hold as much sway. Further, once the parents see that their children are engaged in what they are learning, they’ll likely start to see the value in it too.

Since many of the students that Trent is concerned with come from a Mennonite farming community, what if students asked questions about the rich history and identity of that community? Design some sort of hands-on activity. What about a field trip? Maybe to see how a farm operates? Compare and contrast a rural and a more urban family? (without singling our kids and making them feel like freaks). Is there a museum you could visit? (If not, could students make one, i.e. find artifacts, create displays, present to the class?) Interview the community’s elders (ask how have things changed?) Create a class newsletter³³ that is returned to the wider community, perhaps convincing luke-warm parents in the process. Translate it into German if that is what some in the Mennonite community speak.³³. Create some sort of culminating open house at the school. Or a local barn. Who are your allies? Obviously start with your colleagues and principal, but then call the mayor, MLA, Premier, clergy 4H, Scouts.

This is exciting! Please tell me what you think, and if you need someone to bounce ideas off of, I’m totally here for you.

I’m going to abruptly stop writing now, partly because your question has blossomed into a huge essay and partly because in just over ten hours I need to be at school finishing our 6+ foot geodesic dome with some great students who are willing to come in even though it is their vacation.

Take care.3

1. see Wikipedia: Intrinsic motivation333
2. from Purdue University Calumet’s Dr. Edward Vockell’s online book Educational Psychology: A Practical Approach333
3. I’m reading a book called Creating and Sustaining the Constructivist Classroom. In it they describe how a teacher named Eliot Wigginton started Foxfire magazine: “an effort to document the lifestyle, culture, and skills of people in southern Appalachia in a mixture of how-to information and first-person narratives and oral history.” From wikipedia. FYI: Wigginton later pleaded guilty to child molestation of a ten year old.333
4. I’ve made several of these using MS Publisher, and I’d love to give you a hand333

3