Continuing a bit with an earlier topic, I came across an article entitled How to Create Nonreaders by Alfie Kohn. The author begins the article with two quotes that I found particularly inspiring. The first states that, “Autonomy-supportive teachers seek a student’s initiative…whereas controlling teachers seek a student’s compliance.” The second quote states, “If they give you lined paper, write the other way.” Both of these quotes give a brief idea of what the topic of this week’s post is…the correlation between “teaching” and student motivation. Kohn quickly points out that no teacher can motivate their students, but simply foster (or kill) the intrinsic motivation in each student. Each of us is born with a curiosity about the world around us, and learning is simply the feeding of this curiosity, but this curiosity can be dulled or even killed given the right circumstances. Traditional school is, in my opinion, the number one killer (followed closely by addiction and obsession with technology, but that’s another soapbox) of curiosity and learning in any child.
This author suggests seven things that can create nonreaders or kill curiosity in students: 1) Quantify their reading assignments, 2) Make them write reports, 3) Isolate them, 4) Focus on skills, 5) Offer them incentives, 6) Prepare them for tests, and 7) Restrict their choices. As I was reading this I was somewhat shocked, because what teacher, parent or authority figure hasn’t used one or all of these methods in dealing with kids at some point? But as I read further through the article I was interested to see where the author was heading with this idea. Towards the end of the article several methods are suggested to replace the above seven methods with. As I read these suggestions it hit me immediately…this author is suggesting mentoring rather than teaching. This is something I’ve felt very strongly about for several years, ever since I started my foray into homeschooling. That is something homeschoolers do, we mentor rather than “teach”. What is mentoring, you might ask? In a nutshell, it’s putting the student(s) in the driver’s seat and letting them take the wheel and direct their learning, either individually or collectively. Chaos? Anarchy? With the teaching style and atmosphere in today’s schools that is probably exactly what you’d have, but with training those students would eventually get the idea. Learning should be fun, and should inspire the intrinsic motivation we each have rather than create drudgery. Rather than asking questions with one correct answer, ask for an answer and then ask why. This creates brain activity or thinking…REVOLUTIONARY, I know. This idea of mentoring will create thinkers rather than fact vomit-ers.
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