2023-05-21 09:28:23
Frequently, in both primary and secondary school, students’ motivation is based on various rewards that we offer for the work done. That is to say, they study to get good grades or obtain different prizes for their involvement in the study.
It is a behavioral dynamic, a model that has its origins at the beginning of the 20th century. This model focused solely on observable behavior, ignoring the mental processes that are associated with the experience.
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In the investigations that gave rise to behaviorism, it was observed how people tended to repeat behaviors when, after carrying them out, they received something pleasant: a prize, a few words of recognition, an outstanding award, etc. This is what is called a reinforcement or reward.
On the contrary, people tend to decrease the frequency of behaviors when they are associated with something that is not pleasant or desirable for the person: running out of something they like, being scolded, etc. This is what we call punishment.
Following these observations, the logic of the educator is simple: if I want them to study, I reward that behavior and, the more I do it, the better and more applied students we will have. But the reality is more complex.
beyond the observable
Based on research from very different approaches (such as neuroscience, pedagogy or psychoanalysis), we now know that experience is not reduced to observable behavior and that this is more complex.
It is not necessary to resort to convoluted theoretical models to explain this. From each one’s own experience we can quickly understand that Successfully completing an activity does not mean that the only thing you are learning is how to solve that task.. This experience overflows with meanings that go beyond the action itself.
For example, if we insistently fawn over a teenager with good grades or reward her with gifts, she may continue to do her homework and even improve her grades. But a breeding ground is being created in that relationship that can cause the girl to begin to assume pressure to satisfy others, that she needs to continue listening to more and more flattery and end up making her life revolve around the expectations of others. others.
Cases like this are frequent in schools to the point where research indicates that successful students show a higher anxiety rate in the face of school failure.
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The life project
Therefore, we must guide the study in other ways. Specifically, what the research tells us is that when an adolescent is capable of thinking about himself and his future, the school appears in that reflection and becomes a necessary agent for the achievements that the youngster has proposed.
That is, we find the the need for students to build a meaningful relationship with the different areas of knowledge and with the school. It is about the formative experience making sense by itself, and external reinforcements are not necessary for the task itself.
A concrete example
For example, in a recent investigation in a school I learned about the case of a child with a low academic performance. When a school garden began to be created at school, the boy began to work carefully and disciplinedly in it.
Over time he saw that his work was giving results and he was leaving the school garden more cared for and the planting was beginning to bear fruit. The boy imagined himself working as a gardener when he became an adult, he found out about the academic itinerary that he had to follow and, consequently, he began to study to be able to attend a professional training degree.
This way, school work is done with meaning, no external rewards necessary. The adult does not have to sweeten school tasks with rewards, since it is the student himself who, following his own desire, has found meaning in his time at school.
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Youth unrest on the rise
This makes even more sense when we know that, in recent years, discontent among young people has increased worryingly, and as a consequence, we find a notable increase in cases of depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidal behavior.
This situation does nothing but point out to us the confusion of youth and the need to approach knowledge that makes sense to them and allows them to redirect their discomforts.
search for meaning
In this context, it is necessary to create the spaces and moments for the construction of a positive self-concept and a vital project. This can be approached in a number of ways:
- With dynamics typical of work oriented to emotional intelligence.
- In the very development of the subjects, allowing them to think about their relationship with what is studied. In other words, having time to think about what they feel when they fail to solve an exercise, what emotion appears when they achieve a good result in a subject, what they want to do in the coming years, how the subject being studied can help them solve current and future problems. is studying etc.
- With something as simple as asking about your concerns and needs, and listening without trying to project our expectations onto your ideas.
In short, it is about creating spaces in which students can ask themselves: Who am I? How would I like to become? What qualities do I have and which ones can I enhance? And in this process the school will appear and take center stage.
From this look, the school becomes the place of “becoming” and, also, the home of knowledge and study. Thus, instead of filling the training experience with artificial rewards, we can try to make the study help to reconcile with one’s own desire and the student’s reunion with himself.
DIEGO MARTIN ALONSO
THE CONVERSATION (**)
Professor of Didactics and School Organization at the University of Malaga.
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