Daniel Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation

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After watching the video, Dan Pink: The Puzzle of Motivation, the questions that came to my mind were the following “How can you not reward kids, 4^th graders for that matter, if their motivation is to please the very high demands of their parents who in return, give them rewards? If at ages 10-11, most of them have not learned the value of self-motivation and finds self worth with the amount of rewards they get? How can you deprive these generation of 4^th graders a comfortable habit or even a culture?

But thinking through it and reading more articles I realized that constant gratification in the form of rewards could actually do more harm than good.  It can limit what creative minds can do by focusing on the reward ahead instead of the task at hand. If we shift our goal as educators to nurture creativity and develop creative knowledge from teaching mechanical skills, both parents and students should be educated on the importance of intrinsic motivation.  Teachers should create a learning atmosphere where motivation is around the desire to have autonomy, mastery and purpose. Majority of our students are rarely allowed to choose their path, they are often coerced or persuaded based on others expectations. A change of habits of mind should be promoted by allowing students to take risks, make mistakes and celebrate lessons learned from these mistakes. We should educate based on creative capacities and not on academic abilities by structuring classes, student assessments and classroom activities to promote self-motivation as a habit. #PA3a

Additional Resource: – Sir Ken Robinson: Do Schools Kill Creativity?