I want to turn my focus of motivation from the student to the teacher. I think Johnny started to do this in our last blog post, but I would like to build even more off of this idea as we start to talk about purpose.
This chapter might be my favorite so far. I loved learning about companies like TOMS, volunteerism, and Harvard Business student's pact. However, Gary Hamel's words about business management struck me most. I think business management and classroom management are closely related when we are examining motivation. We've discovered that giving student's autonomy and access to mastery will motivate them in the classroom, but now we need to look at purpose. Giving student's a purpose for learning is an obvious and practical step to take in the classroom because students will ask the question, "Why?". Hamel said we must find ways to infuse mundane business activities (boring standards and benchmarks) with "deeper soul-searching ideas." My challenge is for teachers to do just that. Give your lessons purpose. Students are not going to be motivated by lessons that don't interest them. Lets create lessons that expose these "deeper soul-searching ideas". Not only will the class benefit, but us teachers will start to see a purpose for why we chose this career field.
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