22nd Sep, 2023

Reason and Motivation are totally different

The book titled “THE END OF EDUCATION” redefines the values of current or perhaps future school systems. Right in the first chapter, the author pointed out that do not misunderstanding between Reason and Motivation. From my viewpoint, I see it as an interesting idea to discuss more to help learners know exactly what they are doing.

According to the author, it is suggested the motivation for going to school is based on temporary actions in which learners put their faith, for example, “going to school like peers”, “studying to pass tests”, “doing exactly what teachers told to be complemented”, and “getting high scores to make parents proud”,... So, what is the Reason? Learners can easily recognize the motivation for school coming from outside, though the personal reasons for each student like “studying for passion”, “studying for hobbies”, and “studying based on individual interests”, etc are rarely accepted or expressed by the majority of learners.

In my own experience, when learning TESOL Certificate, it mentioned 2 terms “inner motivation” and “outer motivation”, which look like this problem as discussed. Finding a social factor or an outside cause making us believe that “going to school can help us solve that problem” is very easy, though doing the same thing inside out is hardly done. As a result, some common questions like “what do you like?”, “what are you good at?”, “what do you wish for your life”, etc are usually ignored. On the macroscopic scale, students who finish school will face an abundance of challenges in dealing with life problems because they have been taught by the outer things - others’ problems, not the inner things - their own goals.

To illustrate, I notice that teachers mostly give their lectures to students without explaining why they are worth comprehending. Taking history as an example. Not many students find it interesting to take up and what they react to this subject is to learn by heart and do the test to pass the exam. So, the problem is only from the students? Besides, in focused subjects like Maths, Literature, and English, what makes students want to try their best is to get high scores in the university exams. Not many people care about the students’ opinions, interests, and potentiality at school. This leads to misleading and uncertain feelings among the youth which causes a lot of negative problems in society.

To sum up, going to school nowadays is more complex than before, when the limitations and definitions continuously change. Having the “inner” or “outer” reasons is just relative. Going to study both for yourself or for others is still fine. But, if you have a chance to make something for yourself, don’t miss it. Because you own a valuable thing that helps you stand out from mono-color crowd.

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