Intrinsic Motivation & Montessori

Alfie Kohn, a phenomenal educator and author of books such as Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Reward and Punishments to Love and Reason, speaks about intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation in the classroom and at home. Montessori philosophy emphasizes respect for the child's self-esteem and self-determination and de-emphasizes praise, adult approval, and performance-based rewards.  It takes a long time to learn how to give feedback that is free of personal attachment yet offers detail and attention.  At times, students say things like:  

"I have to get all my works done, or I can't play video games tonight."

"My mom said if I do ______ this week, she will buy me ________."

"My dad will pay me $____ for every math fact I learn."

A consistent message at home and school is vital to a sense of harmony and logic in your child.  At school, Montessori teachers encourage students to balance their activities and challenge themselves, yet we also remember the four other aspects of the person besides the intellectual: spiritual, emotional, physical, and social.  Teachers look at each child individually and avoid comparison, while also setting realistic goals with (not for) the child so s/he can feel successful.  The idea behind intrinsic motivation is to help build self-esteem, independence, and self-motivation in the child so s/he is motivated by interests, personal goals, and internal desires -- not money, punishment, and material rewards.  

Daniel Pink, author of A Whole New Mind and Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, theorizes that changes within society are moving toward intrinsic motivation and away from external rewards.  Rewards may encourage improved performance or increased effort, but Pink and many contemporary scientists agree that results are short-sighted and may undermine the innate desires that often foster innovation, creativity, and fulfillment: "Rewards can deliver a short-term boost -- just as a jolt of caffeine can keep you cranking for a few more hours.  But the effect wears off -- and, worse, can reduce a person's longer-term motivation to continue the project." (p. 8)  Pink calls this the carrot and stick effect and identifies seven ways in which external rewards do not work:

They can extinguish intrinsic motivation.

They can diminish performance.

They can crush creativity.

They can crowd out good behavior.

They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior.

They can become addictive.

They can foster short-term thinking. (p. 59)

The only case in which a reward or punishment is at all helpful is when the desired action is simply mechanical, requiring little or no cognitive ability or creativity (p. 62)  -- the opposite of learning, in or out of school. This message relates to our mission for the long-term benefit of children. We Montessori teachers guide children with practical life skills, intellectual inspiration, hands-on work (prior to abstraction), peaceful solutions, care for the environment and one another, and that Montessori phrase that echoes in my mind every day: “follow the child.”  Sometimes, teachers notice students rushing through their work, jumping to abstraction, or lacking depth in their studies.  Often this can be traced back to a misguided (and often adult-fostered) belief that quantity trumps quality.  As a Montessorian, I disagree: faster does not mean better.

Parents sometimes ask teachers, “How do I encourage my child without resorting to bribery?”  

• Rather than using a reward to motivate a child's behavior, emphasize the behavior you value and demonstrate how you honor that behavior in your own life.  
• Acknowledge virtues like consistency, concentration, honesty, and helpfulness.  Encourage balance and moderation, as well as following one’s passion and respecting that everyone works differently at his/her own pace.  These are the same actions that we Montessorians strive to model in the classroom. 

Adults are often interested in efficiency, not process, and ... often shift from doing too much for a child to nagging him/her about not being suddenly, completely independent. As Daniel Pink mentions in his book, extrinsic motivators perpetuate either compliance or defiance, because rewards and punishments require an authority making the choices.  Intrinsic motivators, on the other hand, involve either engagement or disengagement (p. 110), which allows the child to remain in charge of his/her own choices.  Adults can help guide, only when necessary, the inspiration at the heart of dignity, hard work, and concentration. Adults who model those virtues make a world of difference to children.

In the long run, sending your child to a Montessori school where s/he is guided in this manner and following through with your child in the same way at home makes an amazing impact on your child's life, without external motivators like money and groundings. Montessori students learn from the environment (which includes culture, problem-solving, and materials) to value their interests as the focus of their auto-education -- above and beyond the adult marketplace values of materialism. Individual pace, inspiration, and the wide arena of study available within the Cosmic Curriculum act as a primary drive in pursuing knowledge through openness to learning.  Using external motivators diminishes the value of education, altruism, and compassion by making it a chore for which a person must be "bought off" in order to perform.  Children learn now what to value for the rest of their lives.  Hopefully, with our help, they will lead with their hearts and minds, not simply follow the carrot. 

Unconditional Parenting & Montessori

In reading Alfie Kohn's 2005 book Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason, some passages have given me pause to reflect:

"We might say that discipline doesn't always help kids to become self-disciplined... There's a big difference, after all, between a child who does something because he or she believes it's the right thing to do and one who does it out of a sense of compulsion... if we place a premium on obedience at home, we may end up producing kids who go along with what they're told to do by people outside the home, too." (pp. 6-7)

Kohn discusses BF Skinner and Behaviorism, a tendency to focus solely on actions and not on the feelings nor thoughts behind them.  Montessori philosophy encourages self-discipline.  Teachers act as guides, respecting the child through use of inquiry in three-part lessons and discussion in groups.  Students engage with questions rather than parrot anticipated answers.  Through problem-solving and reading literature related to social skills, students give suggestions for finding peaceful solutions to problems. It is often helpful to ask a child a question and let him/her find an answer rather than making unsolicited demands or nagging.

"Perhaps you've met (adults) who force ... children to apologize after doing something hurtful or mean... So (they) assume that making children speak this sentence will magically produce in them the feeling of being sorry, despite all evidence to the contrary?... Compulsory apologies mostly train children to say things they don't mean -- that is, to lie." (p. 14)

A few years ago, a precocious student had a rough time respecting my assistant.  I spoke with the child after an unpleasant event between them and listened to his side of the story. I then tried to facilitate peace by asking him to apologize to my assistant, either in verbal or written form.  He said that he could apologize to her, but he wouldn't mean it.  I asked if he could consider ways in which he could be more respectful to her, instead.  He came up with many ideas, none of which involved pretending he was sorry when he wasn't.

Kohn quotes noted psychologists Richard Ryan and Edward Deci (also quoted by Daniel Pink in Drive) asserting that "children are born not only with certain basic needs, including a need to have some say over their own lives, but also with the ability to make decisions in a way that meets their needs", what Ryan and Deci term "a gyroscope of natural self regulation" which can be undermined by guilt, needless interference, physical force, criticism, and even praise: "a heavy handed (adult) does nothing to promote, and actually may undermine, children's moral development.  Those who are pressured to do as they're told are unlikely to think through ethical dilemmas for themselves" (pp. 58-59).  Lack of self-regulation also impacts, Kohn observes, personal health choices, social relations, interests, commitments, and acquisition of learning.  Alternatives are for adults to exercise restraint in interactions with children, remember to respect children as people, ask questions rather than make assumptions, separate emotional reactions from the child's will, and say "I notice" when observing behaviors rather than ascribing a positive or negative judgment.

One of the contentious suggestions that Kohn makes in this book and some of his others is that grading negatively impacts students.  He cites studies that demonstrate this and claims that "the more a child is thinking about grades, the more likely it is that his or her natural curiosity about the world will start to evaporate" (p. 80).

After hearing Kohn speak last fall, I shared some of his ideas with the students in my class at a class meeting, a democratic gathering where topics and suggestions are discussed.  I had noticed that when math fact and spelling tests were handed back for correction with a numeric grade on the paper, students compared themselves to one another, some bragging and some feeling disappointed in their abilities.  Some adults feel that competition is a natural part of life "in the real world" that children will eventually have to face, and while I agree with that unfortunate fact, I do not feel that grades as such need to be transparent to students.  I suggested a trial period where grades would be recorded by me but not shown on the paper, only the grammatical and mechanical corrections.  That was six months ago, and no one has complained about their absence.  In fact, I have noticed that students are less self-aware and more confident when given these protective options.  Our school reports S and S+ "marks" at the 6-9 level with extensive narrative descriptions that many contemporary education researchers advocate, as well.

Kohn offers some guiding principles for expressing unconditional love by avoiding rewards and punishments, which include keeping your eye on long-term goals, talking less and asking more, attributing to children the best possible motive consistent with the facts, saying yes more than saying no, and avoiding rigidity and hurrying a child according to your needs (p. 119-120).  Sometimes, we adults who have become accustomed to our own schedules expect the world to know our timetable and are flummoxed when traffic does not stop for us.  Plan ahead and know your child so that you can help him/her instead of asking for frequent adaptation to your expectations. This means avoiding over-planning and making sure, whenever possible, that your child's needs come first. For example, a child told me recently that he hadn't slept well the night before, and the reason he was late to school was that his mom let him sleep in so he would be alert.  I applaud this parent for thinking of her child's needs.  One of the most salient suggestions Kohn offers are three questions for adults to ask themselves regarding their speech and actions with children (and it also applies to our interactions with adults): why am I asking this, is it necessary, and how will the other person receive it (p. 158-160)?

Montessori education -- which provides a prepared, sequential, and orderly scope and sequence of curriculum -- gives students a range of choices for their auto-education.  We guides give lessons, yet much of the learning that happens in our classrooms occurs through the materials teaching the students as frequently as needed for absorption and as rarely as needed after abstraction.  Materials make great guides, because they do not praise nor punish, but simply offer a control of error, another of Maria Montessori's amazing insights over a century ago.  Autonomy does not mean independence but volition, and children are more willing and eager in situations where they feel they have choice.

As Kohn notes, "when teachers give their students more choice about what they're doing... the advantages include greater perceived competence, higher intrinsic motivation, more positive emotionality, enhanced creativity, a preference for optimal challenge over easy success, greater persistence in school, greater conceptual understanding, and better academic performance" (p. 169).  That is, after all, what every teacher wants for her students, what every parent wants for his child, and what every student wants for him/herself.