Final Post

I believe I learned many things of what Pink mention in the book.  I learned that people have type I and type X behaviors, about autonomy, mastery, and purpose.  I agree with Jacque that there is always room for improvement and students should know that their grade is important but not as important as gaining the knowledge of what the teacher is teaching them.  Students have to learn the material and gain the knowledge because they will use it in the future. Grades might help them get in college, but the most important thing that students will use is their knowledge and they can always add more and improve it.

 Overall the reading we did, I found purpose and motivation to tie more with education.  Education has its purpose, as an educator I have the purpose to help students learn what they are going to use when they finish their education and start working on the real world.  For example on pg. 190, take a look at the section that says to help kids see the big picture.  I believe that is a purpose to educate students.  To show them and not to just teach them what’s on the book, but to go beyond that.  In some of my classes in high school and in college I asked myself, “why do I need to learn this, how I’m I going to apply it in the real world?” I always wanted the teacher to explain the use of the things we did in class.  We as educators should ask ourselves how is this relevant to the world we live in in now? and apply it to our lessons.  I like the examples that Pinky gives.  I like them because it’s true that if students are learning Spanish they should practice it in the real world. 

I also like what Pink said on pg. 189, see the section that says offer praise the right way.  The first bullet point says “to praise effort and strategy and not intelligence.”  We know some students are really intelligent, but do they put much effort on what they do? Or how much effort do intelligent students put into their work?  We know some students spent many hours studying for a test, but then they don’t get a good grade on a test.  Are we going to praise them for their effort they put on?  As an educator, I will find the best way to praise students and to treat each student as a unique individual because not everyone has the same ability to learn.