Renee and others, I remember vividly all that I learned when I went from high school teaching and a district language arts coordinator position to teaching in a progressive, multi age elementary school. It was there that I began the journey to understanding what it meant for myself - but also the whole school - to create a learning community based on intrinsic motivation. We had virtually no extrinsic motivation. Our so-called grades were narrative reports describing concretely and specifically children's strengths and needs. There were no practices like spelling tests, indeed there were virtually no tests in any traditional sense of the word. In fact, parents didn't even want money raising "-athons."
For me, as I struggled to make independent reading time more engaging, I went back to Nancy Atwell (who had influenced me as a writing teacher when I taught high school). Her book, In the Middle, started me on my journey. And it was this journey that I tried to mention in my first post response to the question posed here. I wrote about the passion and depth of my students' engagement with their reading in an article in the Reading Teacher years ago. (Remember this like most of my ideas are all ones gleaned from other teachers in my journey!) I also got involved with a 6 year research project focused on motivation following my elementary students thru middle and high school. It was funded by the National Reading Research Center. There are numerous articles that grew out of that research if anyone were interested. As part of that process I wound up reading the extensive research on motivation covering 4 or 5 decades. As a teacher, I had never really read that research other than superficially as part of a psych class. Wish I had known it long ago. Alfie Kohn's book Punished by Rewards is soundly based in all that research....though written in a passionate and entertaining way. It's a way more entertaining way to tap that research than going to the actual research studies! You can't really put it down. He by the way has some strong things to say about Accelerated Reader and so on. I won't go on and on here except to say that one of the strong strong findings of all that research is that extrinsic rewards (and punishments as well ) may increase motivation in the short term but they quickly undermine long term intrinsic motivation. Something to think about. My own research totally supported all that research. The students I taught were co-researchers thru the years and they supported it too. And explained it eloquently to other educators when they presented at conferences over the years. So just a thought. Try the book at least and think about it. Alfie would say don't give contingent rewards - you'll get this if you do that. BUT he would also say that there is nothing wrong with non contingent celebrations. Wow we read a lot. Let's celebrate. Just curious if others on the list have dipped into that research on intrinsic motivation? And thanks Renee for your response. You've read Alfie I know. And I'm just getting to know Pink. Sally On 4/11/12 7:03 AM, "Renee" <phoenix...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: > Disclaimer: This is an opinion. Mine. > > I know that many schools have competitions of many kinds, and that > competition is part of society and that some competition is just good, > healthy fun. But I think it's important to think about the message that > *some* school competitions send, and to me, a reading competition just > goes against my grain. If I were teaching in this school, I would not > feel good about being pitted against all other classrooms AND I would > find it hard to participate. That's why I suggested a school wide > collaboration (ongoing documentation of books and pages read by the > whole school), where everyone works together toward a common goal. > > Our current Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has pitted schools > against schools and teachers against teachers with his stupid Race to > the Top program. High stakes tests pit schools against schools and > teachers against teachers and students against students. > > In my classrooms we always kept a running tally of how many books and > pages kids read, throughout the year. The end numbers were pretty > impressive; frankly, I think they were way more impressive than > cafeteria displays of students names who had reached the "Millionaire's > Reading Club" or classroom displays of race cars racing along on race > tracks made of Accelerated Reading scores. > > Am I really the only one out there? > Does anyone read Alfie Kohn or Daniel Pink? > > Renee Goularte > 20 years teaching, all grades, ELL, at-risk, GATE, multiage, and Art. > > > > On Apr 10, 2012, at 10:14 AM, Phyllis Oliver wrote: > >> At a school where I was reading specialist we used to have >> competitions between classes.(We only had one room per grade level.) >> We might have 3rd and 4th and 5th and 6th compete for the most AR >> points or most pages read. We did this by the month. The losing class >> would serve the winning class a treat (such as homemade sundaes or >> popcorn with a movie, or pizza) the losing class then served >> themselves and all enjoyed the treat. This seemed to work especially >> well with 4-6 grades. >> > > Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." > ~William Butler Yeats > > > > _______________________________________________ > Mosaic mailing list > Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org > To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org > > Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive > _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list Mosaic@literacyworkshop.org To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive
