Leisa Michelle

Nerdy Monologues of an Autodidact

Pleasure, Motivation, Assessment, and More: A Conversation on Education

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The other day, I posted a link to this TED Talk by Seth Godin along with some of my personal comments on Facebook. I’m a fan of Mr. Godin’s work, and also an avid reader of books on alternative and progressive education. I wasn’t expecting anyone to raise any eyebrows at the share. We all have a funny habit of assuming that other people think just like us, and I’m not an exception. So I was surprised when a family friend and educator commented on my status update and raised some questions. There was no judgment in his reaction, just, “Hey, I’m not sure this provides the whole picture. Here’s what my experience is.”

I really respect this man and his long-withstanding dedication to both his students and his field of expertise. And so the things that he said in response had a lot of weight. They made me stop and think. And think and think. And so presented below are the points that this teacher brought up and my responses to them.

Students don’t want to learn things because it’s not preferred – they’d rather do things that bring pleasure.

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Teachers, get out of the way!

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Without a doubt, every student has his own learning style. We’re all unique. So the ways we acquire new skills and knowledge are often unique. Some people learn better from reading about a task, others learn better from watching others do the task, and others still learn better from tinkering solely on their own.

But there’s one thing that’s universal. At some point, the guide needs to step out of view of the jungle behind him so his tour group can see the animals for themselves.

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That Time I Got a C in Calculus

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Failure is often relative and subjective. What I see as a devastating shortcoming might not seem that devastating to you. And hidden somewhere in that truth, there’s something to be said about failure itself being all in our heads. But I’m not going to explore that today. Instead I’m going to talk about the time I got a C in calculus.

I grew up a typical, goody-two-shoes, butt-kissing, overachiever. I had straight A’s my whole life up until college. I aced all my tests, destroyed all my standardized exams, everything. And when I got to uni, overachieving got to be a bit tougher, but I still managed to do really well in my classes. With the exception of my calculus class, that is.

On my first calc test I got a 68%, which was really hard to come to terms with at first because the entire test was just a review of everything you should know before you start calculus.
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