What Motivates Learning?

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what motivates people to learn. This happened to take center stage in my thoughts for several reasons during the last week.

One of these reasons has to do with this blog. I've noticed that some people have blogs that include a thumbnail picture when you share them on Twitter. Some do not. I wanted my blog to include a thumbnail picture when I shared it. I assumed this would be an easy thing to accomplish. A simple Google search, check a checkbox somewhere... Easy peasy, right? 

It was not easy.

First of all, I realized I didn't really even know how to search for this. It took a while before I even used the term "thumbnail." It was this term I had learned at some point in my life, but I hadn't really used it in a while. Once I knew that was the goal, I was able to search more effectively. I eventually stumbled (hours later) onto the term "Twitter Card." It took me several blog posts, multiple scripts that didn't work, and another hour of digging to find a way to solve this problem. I wish I could give credit to the blogger who finally helped me, but I had SO many tabs open at that point, I can't even trace it back. 

So, what's the point?

Well, I spent a large portion of my Saturday morning trying to figure this out. Why? I mean, I didn't have any sort of extrinsic motivation. This wasn't going to earn me a good grade in a class. But it was important to me personally. I wanted to figure it out because it mattered to me. I have a new blog that other people can see, and I care about how it looks. Also, once I decided I wanted to figure it out, I couldn't walk away until I accomplished that goal.

This got me thinking about my students. I wish that they had more say over what they spent their time learning in class. The more I push myself to learn new things, the more I understand how empowering it is to be able to decide WHAT I want to learn. I was super frustrated at so many points during this learning journey, but never once did it cross my mind to give up on it. I had chosen this learning goal, and I had nobody to answer to but myself. And that was incredibly motivating. 

I understand that there are concepts and skills we need our students to learn. However, I also know that students learn more when they are personally interested in and curious about a topic. Why do we force all students to learn about the same topics based on their grade level? 

I speak as a science and social studies teacher, which I know is different than other subject areas. If a student is fired up and curious about World War II in 5th grade, why do I have to tell them, "Sorry, we don't study that in this grade"? I have to tell them to wait a few years because a group of adults who have never met them decided all students learn about World War II in 8th grade. Why can't they learn about the themes they care about? Why can't we figure out how to build our system around what's best for student learning instead of what is convenient for the adults teaching?

I'm curious if there are any schools that are already giving students this freedom, particularly in content areas like social studies and science. I would love to hear about it! How do you allow students to choose the content? Are the standards arranged by themes? Do you track students to make sure at some point they hit the major areas, but leave the actual year they do it up to them? 

Please share any creative ways you or your school are giving students more choice!