Ch. 5

First off, I just wanted to mention how much I loved the poem at the beginning of the chapter. It spoke so purely of the passion people have for their vocations.  You can tell so much by looking into someone’s eyes and I absolutely love when I see this look on students’ faces.  It tells me they are engaged, passionate, and in discovery-mode.

So far in our blog we’ve spoken a lot about our students.  Last chapter, Samantha mentioned that her teacher was beginning to lose interest in teaching because it was becoming less autonomous.  I am making the assumption that her teacher is also having less of a desire to gain mastery in the field.  This is something that I think many teachers are feeling and it needs to be changed.  This chapter points out that the best way to achieve that engagement, passion-in-the-eyes kind of look is to provide people with autonomy.  If the government wants our students to receive the best education, they need to give us teachers more freedom.  Pink says engagement is the only thing that can produce mastery.  So, I best understand it as an equation.  Autonomy + Engagement + Mastery = Success in the classroom for both our students and ourselves.