What motivates you?

I have recently finished reading Drive by Daniel Pink. You may have seen this video of Pink talking about motivation:

While I must say, that I was at first somewhat skeptical of what he was saying (What, people don't always work harder for money?), by the time I finished the book, I could agree that human motivation is complex at best, and that no one thing is always going to work. I could also agree that it would be better if people were intrinsincally motivated, and that the motivators of autonomy, mastery, and purpose would be longer lasting and inspire better performance. The trick is finding ways to keep your motivation going when you are limited in those areas. Some jobs, say engineering, lend themselves very well to autonomy, mastery, and purpose, especially if management is on board, while others, not so much. Take an educational career for example. Autonomy is almost a thing of the past. Autonomy used to be a big draw in education. You had your classroom and your subject matter. How you chose to teach that subject matter was up to you. No more. Most districts are going to an orchestrated system, almost scripted in some cases. Now, this isn't all bad. Autonomy over team is another way to stay motivated, and if teachers love the team they teach with, and feel that they have some control over the planning, this can still work. What I am getting at, is that for some jobs, some of these motivators are going to take some extra work to find and use. Purpose is definitely still a major motivator in education. Most of us feel a strong sense of purpose in teaching kids what they need to know to either succeed at the next level or succeed in life. But, when we see that our purpose is being eroded by standardized testing, and that we are not, in fact, allowed to teach kids what may matter most, this can destroy motivation. However, the curtain may be rising on something that will help this. We may be on the cusp of a change in this area, with the push for 21st Century Skills. In all areas, educators are thinking about what kids really need to know to succeed. This could be a great new wave in education, even though the skills are not actually new. The fact that the push is coming from all sides is a good sign.

I am not sure what the answer is, but here are some more questions--read this Time article about paying kids for school performance.

Now, not to worry, this isn't as diametrically opposed to Pink's argument as you might think at first. Look carefully at how the payments were structured and which schools did the best with the payments. I will take two examples. At the New York schools, they offered kids money for doing better on standardized tests. It didn't work. When the students were interviewed at the end of the study, several things became apparent. The kids wanted the money, but they didn't know how to do better on the tests. They were vague in their ideas of how to accomplish this goal. The scientist said that NONE of them mentioned talking to their teachers for help. The schools that showed the best results, in Washington, paid students for routine behaviors, like showing up to school, being on time, wearing their uniforms, and behaving in class. These are precisely the types of behaviors that Pink says are best motivated by money. They are routine and they do not require any creativity. Also, unlike the test scores, students felt that these were areas of their lives they could control. Now, I am not advocating that we start paying kids to come to school, but this study does raise some interesting points about behavior. The students in Washington did do better on their tests than they had before. Why? Most of us would say, "well, they were at school, and they were behaving better, so they learned more." Perhaps by removing the distractors, students were able to focus on the task at hand and learn. Another thought, is that since these students were from low socio economic groups, perhaps the extra money allowed them a level of comfort in their physical situation. (Pink talks about this, people do have to make a living. They have bills to pay. It doesn't matter how rewarding the work is if you are living on the street.) Perhaps this level of comfort allowed them to respond to other motivational stimuli. I don't know. I do know that we should take what ideas we can from these sources of information and use them to keep ourselves going, and to motivate our students to learn what they need to know to succeed in life.