Ch. 4

    I think it was a general consensus we were all intrigued by the Type I and Type X theory.  The employees at the ROWE work place obviously fall under Type I.  I agree that autonomy is what motivated these employees.  For me, this chapter was easy to relate to the classroom.  Replace the employees with our students and the production rates with students’ performance rates and you have a perfect equation.  In this chapter, one of the bosses of the ROWE operations even said, “ It’s about creating conditions for people to do their best work.” And “…they need a lot of autonomy.”  It’s as simple as that.  We provide our students with environments they feel free to work, learn, and grow in, and we give them choice. 

    This chapter also discussed management.  Pink carried over the same ideas to this section by encouraging autonomy because of its powerful effect on performance and attitude.  Again, this relates directly to how we can manage our classrooms most effectively.  Not only will be able to do that, but we will have taken society-driven Type X students into Type I’s.  And the benefits of that are obvious.

Chapter 3

The thing that stood out the most for me was Theory X and Theory Y on page seventy-four. Pink described Theory X when leaders dislike work and believe people must be coerce, controlled, directed, and threatened with punishment to get them to put forth their best effort. In theory Y is when leaders enjoy their job and believe that “creativity and ingenuity is widely distributed in the population, and that under the proper conditions, people will accept, and even seek responsibility.” The reason this was meaningful to me is because it reminded me of the first time we had class and we pointed out characteristics of our least favorite teacher and our favorite teacher. Theory X reminds me of my least favorite teacher especially because she would threaten us a lot and everything I did felt like I was force to do it. Theory Y reminds me of my favorite teacher because in her class I felt comfortable and I knew what she expected so I accepted my responsibilities without her forcing me to do them.  Pink stated that in Theory Y, “the possibilities were vast- not simply for the individual’s potential, but for the company’s bottom line as well. With my favorite teacher I feel like is the school year I learned the most because I can recall various activities we did in class. As for my least favorite teacher I can‘t recall information learned, but only times she made me feel scare.

I too think I have a Type I behavior like Samantha. There was one statement about Type I behavior that describes me very well. The statement says that Type I behavior is devoted to becoming better and better at something that matters and I tend to bug people about it. People always tell me to let things go and that they don’t have to be perfect, but they have to be for me to be satisfied.

Ch. 3

Like Samantha, I too was intrigued by Pink’s Type I and Type X theories and the associated behaviors.  I can relate to the Type A person but I am not seeing the clear connection Pink makes between Type A people and extrinsically motivated, or Type X people.  He reports that Deci found a link between the two, but to me this link doesn't make sense.  He claims people associated with extrinsic awards show public self-consciousness, act defensively, and exhibit Type A behavior.  To me this is saying that Type A people are motivated by extrinsic rewards, self-conscious, and act defensive.  This assumption and correlation doesn’t make sense to me because the Type A people I know, myself included, are very confident people and seem to act the way we do for intrinsic reasons.  Why do us Type A people plan and worry about things?  I think it is because we are so motivated intrinsically to get the job done, and to get it done the best way possible because it makes gives us a good feeling.  This is all done intrinsically, so I am hoping to read more of an explanation of this theory in the coming chapters. 

Chapter 3

In the previous chapter's blog, Stasia mentioned how her focus was on getting the homework assignment done to get the grade instead of actually trying to learn the material. I completely understand what she means by this because I remember doing the same thing throughout high school. All that really mattered was if I passed the class, so I just had to memorize the stuff for the test to get a good grade and that was it. Short term memorization is completely different than long term learning.

            The one thing that I really liked about this chapter was when it started to talk about the differences between Type X people and Type I people. While reading the last couple pages I couldn’t help but refer back to my fiancé and myself. I am more of a Type I person. I work at a daycare because it works with my school schedule and I get to see my son every day. The money meets my basic needs but intrinsic rewards are more of a motivator for me. My fiancé has a few intrinsic motivators at his job but he mainly works there because of the pay. Pink describes Type X people and Type I people possessing certain behaviors and these behaviors remind me of us also.

Chapter 2 and 2A

I completely agreed that rewards can be bad and extinguish motivation. As I read this chapter it reminded me of my little sister when it comes to reading. In her class they would receive a certificate for a free happy meal if they filled a sheet with a certain amount of books they would read. She would fill the sheet up in a short amount of time but she was not learning anything out of what she read.  On page forty-two Pink states that rewards narrow our focus, and that is what happened with my little sister when she was reading.  Once I asked her what a book was about and she didn’t remember, because she was trying to finish it to get the reward and didn’t gain or comprehended anything.

               I also agree with Samantha about positive feedback and praise. At work there is a student who is constantly getting in trouble and talking back.  My co-workers and I started praising him when he is behaving or doing something nice which is not very often, but when we praise him he acts different and he suddenly changes his behavior. I like receiving positive feedback when I do well and feedback makes me feel appreciated and motivated to keep doing good. I think that if we praise our students more often and point out the negative things less often, our students will feel more motivated and feel like what they do is appreciated.

Ch 2 and 2A

 It’s interesting how Pink points out how putting rewards behind deeds ruins the value of the deed. On pg.36 he talks about how pre-school children were offered a reward for drawing, something they previously enjoyed. They lost interest in drawing based on the fact that now the activity had monetary value rather than intrinsic value. At first this doesn’t make sense to me. If a person goes to school, works hard, becomes a doctor, then they enjoy the act helping people despite the idea they make a ton of money. That’s why they’re a doctor. You don’t go to school for 7-8  years, graduate, and then decide “awww medicine is no fun, I’m gonna sell shoes now.” However, it makes perfect sense regarding Samantha’s reference to reading in elementary school.  I despised reading unless it was something I was interested in. I could read about wildlife all day, but then AR stuff came along and said I HAD to read these books I wasn’t even interested in, what little desire I did have to read when right out the door. The idea I was going to get a little pizza from “Book It” (which I didn’t even like) didn’t help.

Ch. 2 and 2a

I totally agree that extrinsic rewards can be damaging for our students in the classroom.  As a student myself, I can see how it encourages short-term thinking because a lot of times I just want the reward of a grade.  All the other stuff in between loses its value, because the focus is more on getting the homework assignment done rather than gaining an understanding and appreciation of the process. 

I always see signs of extrinsic rewards becoming addictive in classes.  This makes learning lose its authenticity if students only see homework as a pathway to earn a reward.  Time after time, I hear students say, “What do we get if we do this?” or my favorite, “But last time you gave us…”  I like the idea of rewarding students, and it is effective when its given for a rudimentary task after completion, but it is not effective when the students begin to expect it after every assignment.  I think a more effective measure, like Samantha said, is to verbally praise a child instead of giving them a tangible reward.  Students should look forward to positive attention they might receive from the teacher, not candy or another extrinsic reward.   

Chapter 2 & 2A

While reading I came across a part in chapter two that said many people work to the point of a reward and then stop. Then the book talked about reading. This reminded me of a lot of things in school such as Accelerated Reader and the Pizza Hut prizes for reading. In school, if we had to do AR, we wouldn’t read a book if it wasn’t on the AR list. What was the point of reading a book if we couldn’t get a grade for it?

                Also the book said when you offer a reward, it signals an undesirable task. I think this makes a lot of sense. If you think of the times you offer students rewards, its often to do things they don’t necessarily like doing. For example, for completing an assignment, reading books for pizza, or cleaning up. You hardly offer a child a reward for playing well or something like that.

                Another thing I liked was how they said praise and positive feedback often work better than tangible rewards. In my preschool class I always find myself praising a child, then the other children want to do well too so I notice them. I try my hardest not to give extra attention to children that are doing the wrong thing. I sing a song that goes “I like the way that (name) is (sitting), good job (name). This works incredibly well to get the other children to behave. It works way better than disciplining children for bad behavior.