How to Create Nonreaders
ENGLISH JOURNALFall 2010 -- vol. 100, no. 1
Reflections on Motivation, Learning, and Sharing Power
by Alfie Kohn
Autonomy-supportive teachers seek a student's initiative
- whereas controlling teachers seek a student's
compliance. -- J. Reeve, E. Bolt, & Y. Cai
compliance. -- J. Reeve, E. Bolt, & Y. Cai
Not that you asked, but my favorite Spanish proverb, attributed to the poet Juan Ramón Jiménez, can be translated as follows: "If they give you lined paper, write the other way." In keeping with this general sentiment, I'd like to begin my contribution to an issue of this journal whose theme is "Motivating Students" by suggesting that it is impossible to motivate students.
In fact, it's not really possible to motivate anyone, except perhaps yourself. If you have enough power, sure, you can make people, including students, do things. That's what rewards (e.g., grades) and punishments (e.g., grades) are for. But you can't make them do those things well -- "You can command writing, but you can't command good writing," as Donald Murray once remarked -- and you can't make them want to do those things. The more you rely on coercion and extrinsic inducements, as a matter of fact, the less interest students are likely to have in whatever they were induced to do.