This idea that children won’t learn without outside rewards and penalties, or in the jargon of the behaviorists, “positive and negative reinforcements,” usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. If we treat children long enough as if that were true, they will come to believe it is true. So many people have said to me, “If we didn’t make children do things, they wouldn’t do anything.” Even worse, they say, “If I weren’t made to do things, I wouldn’t do anything.” It is the creed of a slave.
-John Holt, from How Children Fail
So what are you trying to say?
Good question. My goal for the quote of the day is to share what others have to say about school, unschooling, and parenting in general. My hope is that it will get people thinking and spark conversation. What’s your take on Holt’s comment? Do you agree? Disagree? I’d love to hear your thoughts 🙂
I love this: “If I weren’t made to do things, I wouldn’t do anything.” Really?! Nobody makes me do anything, and yet…everything gets done. And I’m a lifelong, expert procrastinator, with poor time management skills. And things still get done, and with lots and lots of time left over to do whatever I want. Who knew life could be so simple and stress-free?
Thanks so much for sharing!
But you are made to do them. Not with a physical set of hands leadin your every move. But forced in that you will end up homeless, hurt, or dead if you don’t do them.
I don’t know. I can’t say that I’ve ever heard anyone tell me this on a regular basis. In fact I can’t remember anyone ever saying this to me. Perhaps I just don’t recall. Regardless I’m obviously not in the realm of “so many people have said to me…” by any stretch.
Children, or more adaptly human beings, will do as they will. But if you look at human history and perhaps even think about your own life even, humans do the “most things” when they are backed in a corner. We are an adaptable species. But become very complacent in situations that offer no real serious threats to our livelihood and existance.
Example- not too long ago this country, especially the wild west, was teaming with adventure seekers, explorers, and thrill hunters. Why? Because where ever they originated from the conditions were so god awful that they choose to re invent their life in America. This was scary shit. There was no telephone. Or any electric device at all. You could very easily get lost, killed, hurt, and no one would know a damn thing. There was little accountability. The security you feel just sitting in a place where ever it is and knowing that you are “okay” did not exist in those days. (or any days for that matter until recently). So point is this was a BIG jump. No one FORCED it. But then again when the alternative was dismal meaningless future or likely death and oppression, you might say it was forced?
Now a days how many people do you know who have gone out and went on an adventure to discover a new land? Shit I know countless people who were born and raised in California and never have LEFT THE STATE. I get that from the majority of people I have met here. Why? They have no reason to leave. It’s nice here and has everything. Unless they have a strong desire to culturally enrich their life (many simply couldn’t be bothered with such trivial things like this here), the people become complacent. They don’t desire to do anything exciting or thrilling. It’s not worth leavin the gigantic comfort zone they have fell into. The bigger the comfort zone, the less likely one is to leave it.
The irony in all of this is that California was known for a place where adventure explorers came. A destination for promise and riches and gold and thrills and all that. The very same people who are born here and have no adventure in their heart all have relatives maybe 3 or 4 generations behind them who were exactly the opposite in me mentality. That’s how they got here. Doesn’t take long for lazy “do nothing” mentality to kick in among a population of people.
Realize other species differ in regards to this. Take an ant. They work as a team and colonize as just continue to grow regardless of anything. They don’t get to the point of having the best any hill and just stop and fuck off all day once their ant hill is 50 meters deep or something. They continue to work for more and strive to better themselves and their species at all costs. If they were the last ant colony in existance they wouldn’t work any harder or any less harder than if the world was overrun by ants. Doesn’t matter. you don’t have to “force them to do things” at all. They just do it.
Then the flipside to this again take a coral reef. They aren’t exactly booming around the globe. They stay contained to certain areas and are actually rather sensitive and die easily. You could argue that the thousands of species that depend on the coral reefs arou d the world “force them to do things” such as exist in the first place. But this is a stretch and beyond the scope of what u are saying anyway.
So now that ive succeasfuly spoke nothing about what you have this blog for, lets get to my point here I guess. I agree with the quote. If people weren’t made to do things we simply don’t do them. I guess it also depends on how you define “made”.
Not sure this applies at all to what you are trying to say but take it for what it’s worth.
I see your point. There are certainly things I would probably not do unless I were “made” to do them: dishes, for example, or taking out the trash. I do these things mostly to avoid the unpleasant consequences of having no clean dishes or maggots streaming out of my garbage can.
Yet, there are many other things I do for the sheer joy of it. Not to avoid consequences, or to change deplorable living circumstances, but because being involved in a creative act is such a positive experience. Writing on this site, for instance, or cultivating friendships.
It seems to me that the human race is brimming over with creativity: the impulse to express ourselves, to make a difference, to feel useful or to pursue a noble cause. I’m mindful of the myriad of artistic expression all around us through music and images (even yours!).
Perhaps it’s the case that we teeter between the two, sometimes acting out of negative motivation (avoidance of unpleasant consequences), and at others pursuing our “higher selves”, so to speak – engaging in something for the joy it brings us.
If you haven’t already perused it, check out my post about what Dr. Phil has to say about the same topic, and see what you think.
https://unschoolers.org/radical-unschooling/dayna-martin-and-dr-phil/
There’s a big difference between genuine motivation (whether external or internal) and artificial reward/consequence. I object to the artificial ones, the ones used by those in positions of authority to condition me to behave in a way THEY wish me to.
Is there really a big difference between “genuine” motivation (aka real) and artificial motivation (aka fake).
To begin with I don’t think there is such thing as artificial motivation. That would be more defined as acting like you are motivated when you really aren’t. Which of in itself is kind of an oxymoron because you’re then motivated to not act motivated for reasons not stated.
But what I’m getting from you (both of you in fact) is that you don’t want to be told to do something because of the reward of the action or your failure being the motivating factor? You both would rather just do as you wish and leave it to your own internal self to be your motivation and reason for doing things.
This sounds nice in theory. But in reality life isn’t like that for the majority of people. Like I wrote above, MOST people aren’t going to leave a comfort zone.
But let’s go ahead and take my cousin Collin for example. He’s 30, lives at home, doesn’t have a job, smokes weed all day, pretty much (I love him to death) but a loser. Anybody can see that. He has no motivation to do a damn thing right now. The INCENTIVE for him doesn’t outweigh his current comfort zone. Now what if Collin met a girl he liked and she got pregnant. And this FORCES Collin to get a job, find a place, get married, and be a productive member of society. He isn’t being forced with a physical person standing by him and pushing him to his job and pulling him out of bed in the morning. But he is being forced by the standards that society has set for him.
When he was kid-less and wifeless that wasn’t motivation enough. The push or force he needed was the added responsibility.
This new bigger motivation was necessary and quite beneficial to all involved and society as a whole got better.
You speak of yourself being a procrastinator and “things just get done”. You too are “forced” to do things. There is no “artificial” or “genuine” motivation. All motivation the motivation we have discussed so far is “forced”. Even the tasks you speak of that you procrastinate to do. You are forced to do each one of them or bare the consequences of what happens when they go uncompleted. The rules of society, culture, yuor own house rules, the rules of your neighborhood, etc. They all combined FORCE you to go to work, wake up at a certain time, walk the dog and pick up it’s crap, etc. ALL of this is forced. And thank god or else we’d like in total anarchy if it wasn’t. We had a time like that, it was called the DARK AGES.
If you want to discuss true genuine “unforced” motivation as rare as it is a better example would be taking a vacation to Rome with a friend. The motivation to go was for leisure and to enrich yourself as a person. One could argue that you were forced to go because it makes you happier, which is as a result of you being part of a working class who normally isn’t afforded that kind of life style, and conclude that society in a way “forced” you to go on this trip. But that’s a stretch. Fact is you could of stayed home. If you on your own just decided to go for no other reason but just to take a really cool vacation, THAT is unforced motivation.
Otherwise all the stuff you do that you procrastinate in doing (and we procrastinate on things we DON’T want to do by definition, right?), then you are being forced to do them by an external factor. That is why you do them. Not being you are just free balling it and living your life as you completely want to. Think about it. You’re more controlled than you realize. And my point here is that it is actually a GOOD thing that you are. Or else all those things I bet wouldn’t get done. No offense, it’s just typical of most any of us (me included).
CC
And a year later…
I think the use of the term artificial and genuine was loosely and incorrectly applied. Perhaps if we replace them with the more appropriate terms of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Institutionalized extrinsic motivation would more fittingly apply to the mentioned quote. Long ago, institutionalized extrinsic motivation was rare. And as for the dark ages, that is totally irrelevant as it only applied to to a short time period that was void of recording history, it doesn’t mean they didn’t do anything. In our modernized society, we have allowed a system to develop that is allowed to enforce extrinsic motivations onto us that does force us to live a certain way and meet certain requirements that label our worth and capability equivalent to our monetary value within the system. Which is again, the very core of the quote.
The truth is that our intrinsic motivation is a gift from God. It is as much human instinct as the gift given to animals being animal instinct. Our intrinsic motivation is given to us in order for us to know how to react within the world to live, live well, and reproduce, and protect and nurture our young. Society does not force us to live well or to protect our young. It is our human nature to adapt to our environment and survive. That is intrinsic and the “genuine” motivation that was being expressed.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, Jenn!