Motivation to learn
Danny Tucker
Associate Professor of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. Medical Director, Women's & Children’s Services. Expert medico-legal reviews and reports.
'The two main functions of a teaching organisation should be first to enable students to learn how to learn and secondly to motivate them to want to do so.' -Russell Ackoff
In the 1960's Mantua was one of the most violent neighbourhoods in Philadelphia. A poor community of 22,000 people, gangs ran the streets and education into adulthood was rare. Most children left school with no ability to read or write. Russell Ackoff and his Operations Research group at the University of Pennsylvania were approached by a group of community leaders after educationalists had failed to tackle the problem of illiteracy.
Three community members were employed by the University to research the problem and develop solutions. The academics didn't have the answers, only the community could solve community problems - helped by the resources and skills of the university.
Children didn't read because reading wasn't done at home, their family didn't read and their friends didn't do it. More than half of the households in Mantua didn't contain a book. Street culture was verbal, not written. At age 12 it was compulsory to join a gang for survival. If you were caught carrying a book, you were beaten up, as doing so was seen as a capitulation to a dominating white culture. The children may have been illiterate, but they were smart and they didn't read because they didn't want to.
The research team bought a set of Charlie Caplin films. These played in the auditoriums of the schools in the neighbourhood all day, every day. Any child was allowed to come and watch them at any time, without needing permission from teachers. And by the end of that semester, every child in the school could read.
How? They wanted to read the subtitles. They couldn't understand what was going on and they wanted to. So they learned. They were motived.
Mantua has since received 17 national awards for self-development efforts, it was the subject of 7 major television documentaries and multiple leadership awards.
What are your learners' motivations? Are you utilising this knowledge to the fullest and how could you approach teaching differently to inspire deeply the motivation to learn?