Category: motivation

 

First an apology for months away from this page. Our extended family needed my full attention, including some extra time helping a homeschooling child. Over these months I’ve been thinking about how to proceed with our group study.  

Initially, when I started this page last year, I had hopes for lively conversations, but very few people jumped into the discussions that I started. I’m not surprised that teachers, both homeschoolers and those in schools, did not have much time to engage in these conversations. I remember those teaching days when the few minutes I devoted to any extra task would be minutes I subtracted from my already inadequate sleep.  Yet, I still wanted to find the time to study, to look at big questions from a wide view in a way that would help me be prepared in an inner way for issues I didn’t even know I had coming my way. 

So, what I’ve come to is that to make this page work, and by work I mean stimulate thought and conversation, we need to have fewer topics that last longer than what I had thought when we started. I’m thinking one or two topics a year.  This way, we can take our time to mull over the topics and jump in whenever we can without feeling like we have to make time each week to be involved with a new topic.

I’m particularly interested in the topic I’m suggesting for this year: Healthy Motivation in Childhood. I’m hoping we can look at ways that Waldorf education supports healthy motivation, especially intrinsic motivation. At the same time, I’d like to weave in relevant research. A huge body of research that shows the value of intrinsic motivation dovetails with our approach to teaching. 

Here is a piece by Alfie Kohn that summarizes the value of intrinsic motivation. https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/risks-rewards/  I highly recommend his now classic book, Punished By Rewards.

In spite of the fact that Waldorf education builds both a life of habit and intrinsic motivation, I think we as teachers were raised in a culture where “good job” is uttered as a response to every childhood accomplishment, no matter how small.  Learning how to support children to find their own motivation is part of the art of teaching. How can we help each other develop this subtle art?