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In Japanese, the word kokoro is all about the connection between heart, mind, and spirit. If you write kokoro as a Kanji character it literally means center, heart, and mind. The shape of the character originated from the shape of the human heart, just as the heart has four parts, the character has four strokes. If you ask a Japanese person where the mind is located, many will point to their chest, whereas many Western people will point to their heads. Japanese people think from the heart at the same time as they feel from the heart. I like to use the word kokoro because the closest word in English, mindset, doesn’t address the connection between the heart, the mind and the spirit when our kids are striving towards optimal performance. There’s a few forces that work within my use of the word, kokoro: motivation (heart), skill development (head), and forward movement towards meaningful/purposeful goals (hands).
Our thoughts hold informational, emotional, and physical experiences. We expect and believe based on how we think, feel, and respond and because our thoughts are made up of these three parts. We can experience signals that are both emotional and physical before we consciously experience awareness. We can’t separate the emotion and physical feelings of learning from the informational experience, as the three work in concert. We spend a lot of time within education teaching knowledge and a bit less time teaching skills. We don’t spend much time learning how to regulate emotions or how to create positive motivation (the heart), how to learn (the head) or how to move forward when we feel stuck (the hands). These skills are trainable and if we can teach this capacity for shifting our mental states, our kids will have a distinct advantage along any life path. When learning how to drop into a flow state, kids are learning a state of consciousness rather than a set of skills. If kids can learn how to access creativity, critical thinking, optimal learning, adaptability, and emotional regulation, for example, then the primary skills of reading, writing, coding, or mathematical application will come easily.
Let’s take each of these in turn:
Heart: Motivation
Choice, connection, passion, and optimism
• A child’s motivation is built upon curiosity, connection (passion and purpose) and competence.
• When learning is tough, what is the long-term goal (i.e., a Big Bold Goal) that drives your child to keep going?
• Learning how to draw upon positive motivation can help a child handle failures and setbacks.
Head: Skills
Competence, clear goals, challenge/skill balance, ongoing feedback
• Children start off setting clear goals to learn very basic skills (learning how to metaphorically crawl) and slowly build capacity to walk and later mastery of learning to run.
• What strategies and techniques can children apply to ensure learning sticks in long-term memory?
• Skills that are not too easy and not too hard are best developed in a supportive environment with consistent feedback.
Hands: Momentum and Forward Movement Into the World
Progress towards meaningful, purposeful goals, and real-world application
• Children can learn how to access flow, dropping into a state of optimal performance.
• Where might children develop their curiosities such that they morph into passions and build into life purpose?
Children feel their best and perform their best when using their passions and interests to do something meaningful for others.
In the university courses that I teach, I work with graduate students that are either already teachers or training to be teachers and at some point, our discussions will land on motivation. In coercive educational environments, like traditional schools, kids don’t always want to do what teachers want them to do. When faced with this common challenge, most of my graduate students will describe the rewards and punishments, the daily behavioral reports, the prizes, and the praise that they will use to get kids to comply. It’s what teachers do and if we’re honest it’s what just about every one of us has resorted to in order to survive some days. I don’t know about you, but it usually leaves me feeling a little bit disappointed by the manipulation. Is there a better way? Can we move away from this tendency when learning outside of school? Let’s understand a bit more about motivation to find out.
Motivation, or the energy to act, used to be about survival, a biological drive to stay alive. As society became more complex, we initially understood motivation to be a system of rewards (carrots) and punishments (sticks). Much of the way our society works is still based on carrots and sticks, but we are also understanding that these rewards and punishments don’t work all that well. When we do a task for money or for something else external, we lose creativity, productivity, and quality of work because we often want to get it done as quickly as possible to reap the reward. Children are no different. The promise of praise and grades externally encourages many kids to complete a task, often with little regard for actual learning. In schools, only a select few are typically rewarded, leaving the rest in the default loser category. In addition, we have tied seat time to graduation and the work in school is often about just getting through it, to get the reward of the diploma or the degree. In other environments, such as youth sports programs, all children are given a medal or trophy, whether or not they have earned it, which undermines the natural feedback system that children need to gain competence. People are always motivated; what matters is the high or low quality of the energy (i.e., motivation) within our children.
According to Dan Pink (2011), “carrots and sticks” can lead to Seven Deadly Flaws:
• 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.
Types of Motivation (Fowler, 2019)
Extrinsic Motivation
A reward that happens outside of myself, such as grades, praise, or popularity
Disinterested Motivation
Because I can’t find value in the work I am doing
• I don’t care; I’m too overwhelmed; I don’t have the energy to manage what’s required, lots of energy needs to be put out to slog through.
External Motivation
Driven by scores, grades, or praise
• I have been promised a tangible reward or incentive; I expect that it will bring me power, enhanced image, or status; I hope I will receive people’s love or respect.
• It’s enticing and tempting; It can prompt unethical behavior; It’s ends above means.
• Picture a volleyball player that keeps eyes on the scoreboard instead of the ball in play.
Imposed Motivation
Based on fear, pressure, or shame
• I want to avoid damaging a relationship with someone that has expectations of me; I have feelings of guilt, shame, or disappointment with myself; I feel pressure; I must do it; I fear what might happen if I don’t.
• Irritating and common throughout most people’s day, pressure; I have to do it; I feel resentful.
Intrinsic Motivation
Psychological and emotional feelings that come from within me, such as meaning, curiosity, passion, and purpose
Aligned Motivation
I recognize that my work helps me fulfill meaningful values
• I can demonstrate important values; I derive a sense of meaning; I have made a conscious or deliberate choice.
• I make conscious choices based on the value of the goal or activity; The more I align, the more authentic I am.
• Conscious choices are made about what I deem right and wrong, good, and bad; I need to know what my values are; Values I develop myself are freely chosen and most effective; Values are not programmed as part of the culture, but valid for me as an individual.
Integrated Motivation
Because my learning supports who I am
• I feel a deep sense of purpose; I am being the person I want to be; I am tapping into a conscious and automatic way of being.
• Motivation is consciously developed, but it doesn’t feel conscious because I define myself that way; Because my motivation is internalized, my habits have become my identity.
• Achieving my goal is essential to how I define myself; My self-concept supports my goal, and develops by evolving over time or it comes in a flash through insight or an emotional event.
• Striving to achieve my goals generates meaning and purpose to my life; Forming my identity around my goals makes forward movement a “must.”
Inherent motivation
Because I simply enjoy it
• I am having pure fun and enjoyment; I have an unexplainable interest and attraction to it; I have always gravitated to it naturally; I feel totally immersed in what I am doing; I’m in a flow state.
• I enjoy the activity, regardless of its value and purpose; I’m intrinsically motivated to achieve my goal for the fun and enjoyment of it; Time flies in flow; Positivity and creativity abound; If I’m not sure what intrinsically motivates me, I reflect on what I gravitate towards when I have free time on my hands.
Notice the different types of motivation in your own life. Where do you feel the rub of extrinsic motivation and where do you notice positive bursts of intrinsic energy? When interacting with your child, start to become aware of the different types of motivation you use, and your child uses.
We’ll dive into choice, connection and competence in upcoming videos and until then…have some fun boldschooling!
