Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivators

This week at school held a few examples of initiative that I find indicative of the kind of self-direction and ownership I believe a Sudbury community helps develop in young people.

Thinking of “initiative,” I wanted to sort out in my mind why I see the initiatives taken at Sudbury different from those I saw while teaching at a conventional high school. I think a lot of it comes down to intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivators.

At Sudbury, of course, there are no grades, awards, or really much in the way of public praise beyond perhaps a simple “shout out” at a meeting if someone clearly went above and beyond with something they chose to do for the community. In contrast, in conventionally graded schools, everything “counts.” You may earn “extra credit” or get a “good citizen” award. At the very least, the adults at school will typically come to more highly regard someone that shows “initiative” and that typically translates into higher praise, grades, or other forms of public recognition.

Most of us like to be recognized for our efforts, so why would that be a problem? The problem we find is that when there’s always a reward expected, motivation changes. One eye is looking to see who’s watching. Efforts become forms of performance. This seems to create the effect of actually decreasing real motivation so that while we may observe the same actions from two individuals, the driving force is different in significant ways.

So what happens when there are no rewards or accolades? Do people stop trying? They may at first if they’ve been accustomed to receiving rewards. But what happens over time is that the reward becomes more internal than external. You take initiative because you want to, because your community would benefit from it, because it seems like the right thing to do.

I saw three examples this week of intrinsically-motivated initiative. One was as simple as a teen boy deciding to organize all the cleaning supplies in the back hallway. It wasn’t a punishment nor would it get him a reward. He just noticed they needed some organization, so he did it. And he was quite proud of himself.

Another example involved a teen girl who brought some concerns about chore time to School Meeting but didn’t just leave the issue there. She heard during the discussion about the chore system I’d recently observed while visiting Alpine Valley School, a sister Sudbury school outside of Denver, CO. After School Meeting, she asked if I would reach out to Alpine Valley to see if any of their students would be open to talking with her so she could gather more information about what they do there. I messaged a staff member at AVS and gave them her phone number. Not an hour later I saw that she was on a FaceTime call with two Alpine Valley students, asking them questions and sharing her concerns. No one tasked her with this call. She just wanted more information to try to make our community’s systems better.

The third example that stood out this week was also brought up at School Meeting. We recently received a donation of a new projector and projector screen and our oldest student took it upon himself to research and then detail out a plan for overhauling our whole media set up so that it’s more user-friendly, especially since he’s about to graduate and has really been the one who manages it all. He’d priced out HDMI cables and better speakers and looked up how best to mount the new hardware with our drop ceilings. The amount of work he proposed doing for the school to improve our media capabilities was extensive and impressive. Yet when I proposed that we factor into the budget a stipend to compensate him for his work he became quite shy - he wasn’t proposing this for any kickback. He’ll do it all at cost because he wants it done (unless we can convince him to take a little payment, but I’m not sure we will).

These examples of initiative this week really warmed my heart and spoke to the subtle power of the Sudbury model. When we take away the reward system we get rewarded with young people who take initiative in ways that I believe will better serve them in their lives and in the lives of those around them. They’re developing the muscles of personal responsibility and community care. Even a shiny trophy would pale in comparison. ❤️