What I really enjoyed about Drive was how it was applicable on so many levels to so much more than simply education. First off, I am a mother, and with my three-year-old, I will say I am a mother who resorts to extrinsic rewards too often to get the desired behavior. From sticker charts to cookies, I try to reinforce positive behavior with rewards. While it works sometimes, this is a short term solution. Internally I knew this, but reading Drive helped me to see some of the deeper reasons for lessening the rewards and instead focusing on how to create an intrinsic desire for behaving in my child. Now, if I ever figure that out I will write my own book and retire wealthy, but in the meantime, it is an attempt worth making.
I also enjoyed the book because of the many parallels to science. For example, the analogy of how the x behavior is like coal, and type I is like the sun. Type x, the traditional view of behavior, is old. We've gotten our use, it's no longer very effective, and it pollutes the system. Just like coal. Type I on the other hand has been around since day one. We have simple forgotten how to harness its energy and utilize it, but if we remember, it could change everything. Cleaner, more efficient, renewable. Type I behavior is to solar as type x is to coal.
Drive, in so many ways hit home with current issues in education. We talk in circles about how to motivate students. We ask ourselves how we can get them to do better. We want to meet standards, make AYP, cover more, teach better, and do it all yesterday. What I got from Drive is that these aren't new questions. We are approaching old problems in old ways and getting the same results we always have, then scrsrchg our heads and asking why. If we are truly going to have education reform, we need to think in new and creative ways, and ask new questions. How can we treat students as more than cogs, and carry this over to teachers as well? How can we make behavior and success rewards in themselves? How can we educate today for the world of tomorrow, without knowing what it holds? It's not impossible, some schools have found a way. They went scared to innovate and think outside the box, and as a result have programs and curriculum that are meaningful and rich. It takes some bold moves to try new things, but if we don't we are going to run out of fuel. Coal is a
Limited resource.
Interesting post Jen! Good luck with the behavior in children book! I will buy it for sure. :)
ReplyDeleteI think that Heidi Jacobs Hayes gets in right in that we should teach the habits of mind, which will support our kids in being more thoughtful of their own learning. By nature, we are all works in progress and wish to improve ourselves. Perhaps that is enough motivation in and of itself.