Know Power, Know Responsibility: How to unleash the potential of every child in America

Part 1 — Chapter 13: How People Learn and Are Motivated

Author’s Note: I will publish additional sections of this book each week. You can find previously posted sections at the following links: Note to Parents of School-Age Children and Note to Teachers, School Administrators, and Other School Staff here; Introduction here; Prologues Part 1 and 2 here; Prologues Part 3 and 4 here; Part 1-Chapters 0 and 1 here; Chapter 2 here; Chapter 3 here; Chapter 4 here; Chapters 5 and 6 here; Chapter 7 here, Chapter 8 here, Chapter 9 here, Chapter 10 here, Chapter 11 here, and Chapter 12 here.

CHAPTER 13 –How People Learn and Are Motivated

We need to redesign schools so students will enthusiastically pursue knowledge and skills for their own intrinsic reasons. That means applying known research and understanding about motivation as well as research and knowledge on brain development and learning.

Carrots and sticks. This pretty well sums up how most people seem to view motivation. It’s also how too many institutions and organizations approach motivating people. In addition, most of us were raised within a structure of rewards and punishments and use them in raising our kids. Parents offer rewards for certain behaviors and accomplishments while threatening punishments for unwanted behaviors and failing to meet certain expectations.

Our justice system is built on threats of punishment for breaking the law. Employers offer bonuses or raises for performance that exceeds expectations or for meeting certain goals or measures while threatening to dock pay, withhold bonuses, or fire someone for failing to meet expectations, goals, or measures. Health insurance companies, seeing we aren’t sufficiently motivated by better health and longevity to adopt healthy lifestyles, offer rewards — including cash — for participating in activities that will contribute to our good health.

In every conceivable setting, parents use the carrot and the stick to motivate children — prizes, ice cream, and new video games or grounding, extra chores, and docked allowances. Schools are no different. Nearly everything that occurs in schools is based on rewards and punishments. There are extensive codes of conduct ruling nearly every aspect of school with corresponding sets of consequences. There are honors for students who perform well academically and who exhibit especially good behavior. And there are grades hanging over students’ heads that will serve as reward, punishment, or both for demonstrations of student performance.

Compliance gained at the cost of learning

All these and more are used under the guise of motivating students to be engaged in a school’s instructional practices. And they are very effective at gaining compliance. Unfortunately, rather than contribute to student learning, they detract from it.

When the factory model of school was adopted, there was little understanding about effective learning or motivation. Since that time, immense research has been done on how learning occurs, how the brain develops, and what actually motivates people. The research is clear: rewards and punishments are only effective at controlling behavior, not at prompting learning beyond what is necessary to execute some desired behavior.

We are under the illusion that rewards and punishments motivate learning because we see the evidence in our students. The reality is very different. Think about your own experiences, whether in school or in some other setting. Consider what motivated you to learn. If it was your own curiosity or desire to know something for personal, intrinsic reasons, you were probably enthusiastic about seeking sources of information, teaching, and guidance. You may have sought to learn more than you originally intended, branched out on your learning to new things you discovered during your search, and been able to build upon what you learned.

On the other hand, if you were seeking knowledge or skills to earn a reward or avoid a consequence, you may have learned what you needed, but you were probably not enthusiastic about it. You likely learned only as much as needed to fulfill the expectation, and — unless you were applying the learning with some regularity — you probably didn’t retain the learning or seek ways to build upon it.

I want to be clear: some learning and other benefits can occur through the use of rewards and punishments. Some learning can occur through drilling and other memorization methods, and some students can learn very effectively this way. Further, using rewards and punishments may get students to explore things they would not have otherwise. Yet such benefits and learning could be designed into a new model without all the collateral damage.

Rewards and punishments diminish learning

Probably the most devastating consequence of using rewards and punishments to “motivate” learning is that it actually diminishes innate curiosity. Desire to learn is a critical survival tool, but children lose their inborn curiosity when they lose control over their learning. Curiosity is further diminished when students are punished for being distracted or breaking a rule due to being curious about something. They figure out that they should only strive to learn within the structure and direction provided by the teachers.

In his book Drive, Daniel Pink taps into researcher showing what actually does motivate people. There is significant research that people are best motivated not by rewards or punishments but by providing them with autonomy, giving them challenges over which they are capable of mastery, and giving them the opportunity to be part of a bigger purpose beyond themselves. (Pink, 2009)

Beyond identifying these elements of motivation, Pink notes the unintended and frightening consequence of trying to motivate people through the use of rewards. The research shows that children’s innate interest or enjoyment in a subject or activity will diminish when they are rewarded for it.

In one study, children who enjoyed drawing pictures were left alone in a room. They drew, without being prompted, for their own enjoyment. Researchers then rewarded some of the children for the drawings they had done. After receiving rewards, those same children would no longer draw for their own enjoyment but instead would only draw when offered a reward. In other words, students who enter formal education with interests, curiosity, and a longing to learn may see all these diminish once they start to be rewarded for them with grades, gold stars, or praise. (Pink, 2009)

The bad news goes further. Other research demonstrates that people promised a reward have diminished creativity and problem-solving abilities. The promise of a reward actually reduced the ability of individuals and groups of people to solve a given problem or come up with creative products or solutions. This is in addition to the ways learning is inhibited by stress as noted by Stixrud and Johnson and discussed in chapter 4. (Johnson, 2018)

Rewards and punishments for algorithmic tasks

The one place Pink found value in rewards and threats of punishment was performance of what he calls “algorithmic” tasks. These are repetitive tasks that can be broken down into repeatable steps. Our schools do a good job preparing workers for jobs with such tasks, which don’t require high-level thinking skills, creativity, problem-solving, or much mental effort. They also tend to be boring and undesirable to most people and are the tasks most readily automated. These were common in many well-paid jobs during much of the twentieth century, but many such jobs no longer pay a decent wage. (Pink, 2009)

Our society has become good at learning that is done to meet others’ expectations and for which we will receive a reward or avoid a punishment. Those who are unhappy in their jobs yet perform them well have learned what they need to get their paycheck, but they are not usually enthusiastic about learning more than necessary. Instead, people unhappy in their jobs look for things that are personally meaningful and interesting elsewhere. Sometimes, people can turn their personal interests and passions into a job they will pursue with vigor — including learning and applying all they can. That is really how this book came to be.

We must redesign our schools so students will enthusiastically pursue knowledge and skills for their own intrinsic reasons. That means applying Pink’s lessons about motivation as well as research and knowledge on brain development and learning. Many great books that should inform educational design (such as Drive) were not written for schools and educators because they would be of little value in our current structure. Their insights and recommendations — often directed toward business leaders — require organizational flexibility, dynamic structures, and viewing people as individuals rather than cohorts. Our current school model does not reflect such an organization.

The research and data we have were not available to the Committee of Ten. They didn’t know that children would have their innate sense of curiosity and an inherent need to learn diminished through forced instruction in settings that are anathema to effective learning. Today we have such research and data. The question is whether we have the courage to change our educational system to leverage it and move every student toward his or her personal potential.

Continue with the next element of Know Power, Know Responsibility (Chapter 14), here:

Kevin Miller is a Boomer who joined the Army during the Cold War and continues to serve. He has spent 30-plus years working in K-12 education as a teacher, administrator, and consultant and is now on a mission to reinvent our school model. His book Know Power, Know Responsibility provides the imperatives for a complete redesign of schools and the way to get there. See his website knowresponsibility.com to learn more.