Sunday, June 16, 2013

Motivation - By Tony Gurr

Initially as I scrolled through Tony Gurr's post on motivation  I was super confused. I quickly scrolled down and all I really saw were pictures with a few sentences in between each. This style of portraying a message was new to me, I've never really seen it done before. I had some doubts of course, how could Tony portray a strong message through a series of pictures? This definitely intrigued me, and I scrolled back up to truly read through the entire post. 
 
  As I was reading through the post I found myself entertained and mentally agreeing with pretty much everything he mentioned. One picture that really hit home was:
3 things from 30 years
I believe everything within this picture is true. Think about it, if you didn't like someone why would you take the time to listen to their voice or thoughts or opinions. It may seem harsh to put it that way, but hey we're a bunch of temperamental teenagers here. The fact that we go through so many troubles already with friends, family and school already takes a toll on us. Now add in a teacher we dislike and you have the final missing piece to your puzzle of why we just give up on learning. No matter how good of  a person you are it is highly impossible for you to sit there for 2 hours for 10 months trying to absorb information from somebody when you truly dislike them.  

  The second point I believe is 100% true. Majority of tests are about memorizing facts. We study and study and study and try to drill these facts in to our little brains. We finish the test, and then toss away all that information aside, to be forgotten. Personally, I think testing does motivate students to learn but learn in a "bad" way. It's true we do learn facts when we memorize but tests encourage us to memorize all these facts to get a good grade, but never actually utilize this information and learn from it. I believe when you mark somebody on a test, it's like you're marking someone on how well they can memorize facts and information. We don't learn from memorization. We learn from expanding, using the knowledge, applying the knowledge on things etc...  Therefore the more you test, the more we try to memorize, and in the end less information has been absorbed. 


How would you feel if you had no voice to speak your mind? Everyday, us kids unwillingly go to school. We sit there for 6 hours while teachers pile on a bunch of homework and tests. We sit there, listening obediently to the teacher who most of the times do not give us many choices or allow us to use our voice to speak up. Through all 16 years of my life in school, it is rare to hear a teacher ask, " What would you guys like to learn in this course?" or "What do you guys want to do?" I believe we should be treated as equals in the classroom instead of the teacher having all the power. It's OUR education, so why can't we have a say in how learn things, or what we should learn? By giving us more choices and voices, it creates a more open and welcoming environment in the classroom. This is the ideal environment for kids and I can guarantee you that kids will thrive. 

  I fully agree on what Tony had to say. In order for kids to gain motivation to learn, we need to change the ways we're being taught. It's the little things such as more choices, less tests, new ways of gaining knowledge. It's not only the teachers responsibility, the students must also motivate themselves. If both can be achieved then I believe that is when kids will truly be learning. 

2 comments:

  1. I loved how you expanded on the one visual that spoke to you the most Melissa. It does make me sad to hear how "unwillingly" you think kids go to school. Great final PST of the year Melissa-hope you remember this next year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey Melissa,

    Totally agree with Ms Lees comment - great way to drill down into what is important to you ;-)

    I really liked how you explored the themes...even though I get that it was a tough "assignment". If you want take a look at all the post in the "series"...a bit more context might help:

    http://independent.academia.edu/TonyGurr/Posts

    Actually, I was planning on asking you a question or 3 - but as I read and re-read your post, all I want to do is ask you to re-post it (as a comment) on my blog. Could you do that for me - no pressure! But, I think it is a great response and I think others (TEACHers) would love to look at it ;-)

    Let me know ;-)

    Once again - thank you for your time (and thunks) ;-)

    T..

    ReplyDelete