Re: Love of learning vs. tolerating the practices of school

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On 12/01/10, Catherine Becker wrote:
> How do you transition students from needing external
> rewards to becoming more intrinsicly motivated?
>
> How do you get students to learn just for the love of
> learning?

The first thing is to have it really be learning. Too often
in schools we plan activities that are not meaningful
learning to children and then ask - 'why don't they love to
learn?'

Learning is an empowering feeling - when kids are truly
learning or feel like they are - they light up. When we hand
out lists of 20 obscure vocabulary words and tell them to
write sentences and memorize the definitions, that may not be
learning... actually. Why would any child or teenager love an
activity that doesn't work for their learning style?

But from that we leap to say - 'that student doesn't love
learning.' Well... he/she might but memorizing definitions
to 20 words isn't really learning.

And a lot of what we do in school is really just memorizing -
not learning. Learning is a journey - there's a sense of
discovery that's inherent to the process - but few school
classrooms work to create that sense of discovery.

Most people including most kids really love the feeling of
learning - they say things like "Wow, that's cool." "Wow, I
didn't realize that."

Just because it's school doesn't mean it's learning.  

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