I am going to deviate from my usual fare in this blog and
comment not on civics education, but education in general. Specifically, this
posting wants to look at what goal should students harbor when approaching
their school work. Should they hold as
their main goal improving their performance so that they and others can view
them individually as students performing at a high level of accomplishment or
should they simply aim at learning something?
It turns out, this is a basic decision, one that has consequences
relative to how successful students will be.
You might point out that there is no logical inconsistency
between aiming to improve performance and wanting to learn something. The potential – and oftentimes actual –
conflict is in the motivation the spurs one toward one goal as opposed to the
other. Aiming toward performance success
is motivated by the desire to have oneself or others see one as smart or successful. It seems to have a competitive side to its
nature. You want to say I’m good at
this; I’m smart enough. In itself this
is not necessarily a bad thing. The
problem arises when this motivation becomes too dominant or singular in its
importance. A person so motivated might
shy away from true challenges. Why
jeopardize one’s view of oneself or undermine what good opinion others might
have by taking on something hard and then failing? In the case when one starts a challenge and
then meets with initial failure or unexpected problems, if performance is the
goal, one is likely to jump to the conclusion that the perceived obstacle is
too hard and beyond one’s ability. Why
not just give up?
But let us say the overarching goal is not performance, but
learning. If learning is the primary
goal, problems and initial failures are just temporary and can be overcome. One can try a different strategy or acquire
more or different information or skills.
The aim of becoming educated then is to learn for the sake of learning. Now, one might have further motivation: the information to be learned can be useful
for some other purpose and, yes, learning something can be a source of self-confidence
and a sense of accomplishment. But if
the student can keep such motivations or rewards in a secondary mental status
and keep as primary the motivation to learn, one has a greater chance at
academic success, so writes Carol. S. Dweck,[1]
prominent educational psychologist.
[1] Dweck, C. S.
(2000). Self-theories: Their role in
motivation, personality, and development.
Philadelphia: Psychology Press.
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