Reflecting on "When Play Becomes Work"

Last week an excellent article ran in the Washington Post by Shankar Vedantam entitled "When Play Becomes Work" (Monday, July 28, 2008; Page A02). The article should be a call to action for parents, teachers, and everyone who spends time in school.

From the day they first start school - children come to the classroom with an innate desire to learn. It's human nature to be curious and to want to know more about the things we don't understand. But when students are given irrelevant and mundane tasks to do in the classroom they get bored and find more interesting things to do - like act up. Enter behavior modification systems. Stars, stickers, prizes, and punishments have nothing to do with the core content teachers are required to teach in school, but they become a regular part of instruction in classrooms where students are bored to distraction.

Vedantam's article concludes with the quote, "It is easy to offer a reward, but it is not easy to help people find their own motivation." School should not be easy. But it should be interesting. And at Inspired Teaching we believe parents and teachers owe it to their children to make school a place where students can find their own motivation.