I'm sure this has happened to you: you get all excited about a particular approach or research subject; you live and breath it for days, weeks, months - and then somebody, somewhere makes a comment, unrelated to your work, that makes you doubt yourself.
That happened to me today. I've been immersing myself in gamification positivity, from all angles. I've been more excited about setting something up in my own classroom than I have been for years.
And then came a little tweet. Retweeted by someone else. A piece entitled 'How to create Non Readers - a reflection on motivation', by Alfie Kohn. A thoughtful, insightful and inspiring essay on the value of intrinsic motivation in reading. And I'm back in my PGCE year, passionate about intrinsic motivation and the dangers lurking in every pack of stickers.
So which way to turn? On the one hand, I still believe in creating a love of reading for its own sake. On the other, I am beginning to understand (or think I am) how classrooms mitigate against the boys in school (Ali Carr-Chellman's TED talk on engaging boys through gaming, for example - pretty inspiring) and I really want to work on behalf of the boys I see switching off and turning away from my neat iedas of what should engage them.
So I have ploughed right on. I've completed my set of levelled activities for independent work in Guided Reading. I've been out and bought cards and envelopes and stickers (aargh!) and I'm all ready to bring them into play on Monday.
With a little of yesterday's excitement and enthusiasm, I'm sure I can excite my class about my new approach next week. But stickability counts. I don't want to be reinventing the wheel at Christmas.
Tell me what you think. Must motivation be intrinsic to be worthy?
Collo
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