Self-Education Is Motivating
In Daniel H. Pink’s book, Drive, one of the main points he emphasizes is that true motivation comes from an individual feeling they have three elements present during their efforts:
- Autonomy – the ability to control their destiny to the greatest extent possible.
- Mastery – the opportunity to truly master one or more domains of knowledge or skill.
- Purpose – a meaningful reason behind their efforts.
I agree with Pink’s assertions and realized while I was reading his book that self-education fits nicely into his motivation paradigm.
No form of learning gives you more autonomy than self-education. Whether you call it informal learning, self-directed learning, project-based learning, or some other flavor of self-education, the level of autonomy these approaches offer is significant. Formal education often takes autonomy out of the educational equation.
Self-education fosters mastery. Without the constraints of a predetermined curriculum agenda, we can learn as much about a topic as we wish. Going deeply into a particular area of study is one of the luxuries self-education offers. Formal education curriculum tends to want to move you along at a certain pace and in a certain order. If you want to go off on a tangent and study something in more depth, you’ll be left behind and you’ll be judged as not keeping up.
Education efforts we undertake on our own typically have an identified purpose in our lives, even if that purpose is simple curiosity. Self-educators tend to not waste time on subjects that have little relevance to their lives. So a sense of purpose tends to encourage our learning in ways that a rigid set of curriculum guidelines or degree requirements often do not.
True motivation is energizing. Getting a good grade or getting an annual bonus at work might appear to be good motivational tools, but research doesn’t support this contention. Real motivation requires that the elements of autonomy, mastery and purpose be present and self-education provides these three things in abundance.
Deb Williams
December 16, 2012 at 6:46 amThanks for this post, Race. For someone like myself who’s been well-indoctrinated through the US educational system, the “old school” way, it’s a little bit difficult to wrap my brain around “self-education.” And too, a little difficult to know where to start. I can’t remember exactly when or how I stumbled across this wonderful site – http://www.khanacademy.org/ – but I wrote a note to myself about it some weeks back and your post helped me remember it. Sal Khan offers positively delicious ways to dip one’s toes in the self-education pool for those of us who need a little guidance in our endeavors. And I personally feel this country is overdue for newer, more effective educational paradigms. Thanks for the pep talk!
-Deb