Ends and Means, Means and Ends

Process. This is the conversation that I had with one of my classes today. They were asking me about how they were being graded on the blogs that I have had the write since the beginning of the year and what was involved in the things I was having them embed in the blogs. I truly believe that this is one of the biggest problem with education today. Students have become motivated only by grades and not by a love of learning. If you buy into the theory that external motivation is not a great way to get much of any accomplished, and that they only way for lasting learning to happen is through intrinsic motivation. We are doing our students a disservice by having them focus on grades only and not the process, not the participatory nature of education. If we are truly trying to create life-long learners then we need to come with ways to have them not mind learning so much. If the only reason that they are learning something is for the grade, then we have not taught them anything.