MID-TERM SMILE AND GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Well, three academic streams are confluencing in class this week. First, the students are working on “The Song Thing” project; second, I have due what I angrily call “grrrrrrrrrrrrrr,” very unproductive, stress-imposing, mid-term “in progress grades;” and, third, students are journaling to me their answers to my own mid-term “How are we doing so far?” evaluations of their and my performance. Since I am struggling to wean students off of being grade conscious and nurturing a learning consciousness, I am sure that the administrative “powers to be” will not be happy with me since I chose the “none” option for my 180 in-progress grade reports instead of the usual A-F gamut of possibilities. At the same time, you should read the students evaluations. They blew me out of the water. The students had to answer with a word or a short phrase five simple questions:

1. What are three most important things to you that you have learned so far?

2. What are three aspects of the class that have been of the most help to you so far?

3. What are three things you like most about the class?

4. What are three things you wish were different?

5. Have you kept the “A” I gave you on the first day of class? If not, in one or two words or a short phrase, why not.

I’ve been tabulating in a very unscientific way, the student responses. They fall into six positive categories and one negative one. The six positive ones are: (1) they feel that they belong and are connected, and it reduces their debilitating fear and stress levels; (2) they feel a competency they seldom felt before and which surprises them; (3) they feel an autonomy that makes them nervous since they’ve seldom had it in a class before; (4) they enjoy the ownership of their decisions and control over themselves, which feeds a self-confidence and self-esteem; (5) they understand and accept and appreciate “the why” of the stuff they doing and manner in which they’re doing it; (6) and, they’re learning some history and experiencing its relevance to their lives. The one negative category of their response reveals the nature of their grade addiction, that is, they wish they didn’t have to work so much and so hard to keep their “A.”

These evaluations give me confidence and reinforce my commitment and determination in my struggle to swim against the current academic reward and punishment, carrot and stick, grading currents by (1) engaging in semester beginning “Getting To Know Ya” exercises that connect students with each other, with me, and me with them; (2) setting up daily, semester-long “stuff” such as journaling and mutual communicating to keep us connected to each other; (3) dividing the class into “communities of mutual support and encouragement” of three and four students that are gender and racially mixed; (4) engaging in semester beginning “Why We’re Doing What We’re Doing” exercises that explicitly give a purpose and relevance to everything we’ll do in class for the entire semester; (5) engaging in crucial exercises that will give the students autonomy and ownership of everything they do; (6) and, implementing my “Academic Oath” by which we–each student and me–work to be aware of, notice, and respect ourselves and others. They, and other elements, are all components of my intention of “Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges, Creating Community.”

These mid-term evaluations demonstrate that we, students, everyone, all have, as the science is telling us, five needs: first, the need to belong or feel connected; second, the need to feel competent; third, the need for autonomy or self-determination or ownership; fourth, a sense of purpose or meaning in what they, we, do; and finally, the relevant and personal “why” of what we do. When these needs are satisfied, we and they are more motivated, productive, at peace, and happy. When these needs are thwarted, our stress level shoots up, and their and our motivation, productivity, and happiness shoot down. Points, grades, tenure, promotion, salary increases and other academic tangible rewards tend to have a substantially negative effect on intrinsic motivation. When we focus on the short-term goal of a grade or GPA, on tenure or promotion or salary increase, and opt for controlling student’s behavior or allowing our behavior to be controlled, we do considerable long-term damage to students and allow others to do considerable long-term damage to us. Think about it. My colleagues don’t have the highest morale in these hard time because they’ve so bought into the carrot and stick syndrome that when we’re being furloughed and not getting salary increases, we feel a “what’s the use” unappreciated, unnoticed, and an almost “whipping boy” punishment. And, let’s not get into the issue of the extent we do sell our souls in a Faustian manner in our quest for tenure and promotion.

When we aren’t producing, when students aren’t producing, they and we typically resort to the carrot and stick of rewards or punishment. We call it grades when it comes to students; we call it assessment or annual review or post-tenure review for tenure, promotion, and salary raises when it comes to us. What few people have done is the boots on the ground, hard work of diagnosing what the real problem is. Thanks to our century long acceptance, implementation, and submission to Frederick Winslow Taylor, we’re created creaky, rusty academic factories. But, academic institutions are not factories; we don’t have a production line driven by monotonous, mind-dulling, repetitive steps. Yet, we ask the factory question: How can we motivate them? And, we run over the problem with the smoke stack factory answer, “with the reward of a carrot or the punishment of a stick.” Our answer is so behind the science that is demonstrating that when people use rewards and punishment to motivate, that’s when rewards are most unrewarding, most demoralizing, and most demotivating. We’re deaf to Deci, Boyatzis, Senge, Goleman, Seligman, Amiable, Dweck, Gardner, Csikszentmihaly, and others. The science is telling us that human beings are not rats in a cage or automatons. They’re more. They have an innate drive to be autonomous, self-determined, purposeful, achieving, and connected to one another. And when we focus our efforts on creating environments for our innate psychological needs to flourish, when that drive is liberated, people will more likely achieve more and live richer lives. So, the questions we should be asking are:

1. How can we create the conditions within which others will motivate themselves?

2. How can we best liberate the drives for autonomy, self-determination, meaning, and connectedness?

3. What strategies have proven effective to nurture intrinsic motivation in a variety of settings?

4. How do we help each student feel welcome in class?

5. How do we help each student feel she or he belongs and is connected?

6. How do we help each student feel respected?

7. How do we help each student feel she or he is being seen and heard?

8. How do we help each student feel she or he has some control over what transpires in their lives?

9. How do we fixate on the strength to be reinforced rather than on the problem to be solved?

Classrooms, campuses, will become “motivating environments” when we stop dictating and controlling, when we stop isolating, when we stop relying on fear-inducing and stress-creating extrinsic rewards and punishment, when we have (1) broken barriers, (2) built bridges, and (3) created community. That is true for students; it is true for faculty; it is true for staff. When our natural human needs to belong and feel connected, to experience a sense of self-determination and ownership, to have meaning and purpose in our lives, to have relevance in what we do, and to have our competencies identified and recognized are met, when we feel we are in community with each other, when we can nurture and reinforce those needs with values that are characterized by respect for oneself and others which are at the core of leading a responsible and ethical lifestyle, we are far more likely to create conditions for everyone to motivate themselves and to achieve.

Louis

 

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About Louis Schmier

LOUIS SCHMIER “Every student should have a person who wants to help him or her help himself or herself become the person he or she is capable of becoming, and I’ll be damned if I am ever going to let one human being fall through the cracks in my classes without a fight.” How about a snapshot of myself. But, what shall I tell you about me? Something personal? Something philosophical? Something pedagogical? Something scholarly? Nah, I'll dispense with that resume stuff. Since I believe everything we do starts from who we are inside, what we believe, what we perceive, and what we do is an extension of ourselves, how about if I first say some things about myself. Then, maybe, I can ease into other things. My name is Louis Schmier. The first name rhymes with phooey, the last with beer. I am a 76 year old - in body, but not in mind or spirit - born and bred New Yorker who came south in 1963. I met by angelic bride, Susie, on a reluctant blind date at Chapel Hill. We've been married now going on 51 years. We have two marvelous sons. One is a VP at Samsung in San Francisco. The other is an artist with food and is an executive chef at a restaurant in Nashville, Tn. And, they have given us three grandmunchkins upon whom we dote a bit. I power walk 7 miles every other early morning. That’s my essential meditative “Just to …” time. On the other days, I exercise with weights to keep my upper body in shape. I am an avid gardener. I love to cook on my wok. Loving to work with my hands as well as with my heart and mind, I built a three room master complex addition to the house. And, I am a “fixer-upper” who allows very few repairmen to step across the threshold. Oh, by the way, I received my A.B. from then Adelphi College, my M.A. from St. John's University, and my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I have been teaching at Valdosta State University in Georgia since 1967. Having retired reluctantly in December, 2012, I currently hold the rank of Professor of History, Emeritus. I prefer the title, “Teacher”. Twenty-five years ago, I had what I consider an “epiphany”. It changed my understanding of myself. I stopped professoring and gave up scholarly research and publication to devote all my time and energy to student. My teaching has taken on the character of a mission. It is a journey that has taken me from seeing only myself to a commitment to vision larger than myself and my self-interest. I now believe that being an educator means I am in the “people business”. I now believe that the most essential element in education is caring about people. Education without caring, without a real human connection, is as viable as a person with a brain but without a heart. So, when I am asked what I teach, I answer unhesitatingly, “I teach students”. I am now more concerned with the students’ learning than my teaching, more concerned with the students as human beings than with the subject. I am more concerned with reaching for students than reaching the height of professional reputation. I believe the heart of education is to educate the heart. The purpose of teaching is to instill in all students genuine, loving, lifelong eagerness to learn and foster a life of continual growth and development. It should encourage and assist students in developing the basic values needed for learning and living: self-discipline, self-confidence, self-worth, integrity, honesty, commitment, perseverance, responsibility, pursuit of excellence, emotional courage, creativity, imagination, humility, and compassion for others. In April, 1993, I began to share ME on the internet: my personal and professional rites of passage, my beliefs about the nature and purpose of an education, a commemoration of student learning and achievement, my successful and not so successful experiences, a proclamation of faith in students, and a celebration of teaching. These electronic sharings are called “Random Thoughts”. There are now over 1000 of them floating out there in cyberspace. The first 185, which chronicles the beginnings of my journey, have been published as collections in three volumes, RANDOM THOUGHTS: THE HUMANITY OF TEACHING, RANDOM THOUGHTS, II: TEACHING FROM THE HEART, RANDOM THOUGHTS, III: TEACHING WITH LOVE, and RANDOM THOUGHTS, IV: THE PASSION OF TEACHING. The chronicle of my continued journey is available in an Ebook on Amazon's Kindle in a volume I call FAITH, HOPE, LOVE: THE SPIRIT OF TEACHING. There a few more untitled volumes in the works..

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