Children as decision makers
Inspired by the use of Self-Determination Theory in the classroom
Hey, it’s Harrison 👋 Welcome to my publication about creativity as a tool for personal and professional growth.
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Hey subscribers,
I want to continue where I left off in my last post in which I shared some fundamentals about Self-Determination Theory (SDT)1, the idea that intrinsic motivation (which is correlated with the highest levels of happiness and performance) comes from being able to meet our needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness.
My big question is:
How DO you help (young) people to meet their need for autonomy, competence and relatedness in their education?
I’m particularly interested in this question as I think more about trying for a family, and about how I can be an even happier, more motivated lifelong learner.
I want to get practical about this theory now. I'm not saying I know everything I need to know about SDT; I've only scratched the surface. But I do think unless I stop to take stock of what I'm learning and apply it to my own life in a practical way, I'm worried I'll forget some of it or all of it.
As is normally the case when I’m researching, my first port of call was to type "self determination theory in education" into my podcast search bar and listen to a few of the results. One result that stood out was a music teacher talking about how she uses SDT in the classroom to achieve some pretty remarkable results.
She kicked things off by telling the story of how she used to teach with the "carrot and stick" model, giving out stickers and candies, which she added were always ineffective in the long run at getting her kids to want to learn.
After doing an SDT-informed teacher training course, however, she said she finally saw the light, and began finding ways to give the students more autonomy over how they learned.
Specifically she allowed the students to:
choose their instrument and THEN choose to change instruments at any point during the term if they wished to. This made sure every kid had chosen the right instrument for them and that nobody was saddled with work they didn't ultimately want to be doing. If a student changed instruments mid-term, she then found another way to give them autonomy: she paired the student off with another student who was already playing that instrument, and got the more experienced student to teach them the ropes. As we know, teaching something is one of the most effective ways to learn it, and by tasking the experienced student with teaching the novice, not only did the experienced student learn even more (+1 for their competence), but they also got to decide how they taught their knowledge (+1 for autonomy). And as you've probably realised if you're paying attention, teaching a peer also gave them a big +1 on relatedness too
choose the music they would practice all year. This was particularly effective at getting underrepresented students bought in as they then got to choose to practice songs that normally wouldn't appear on a typical college music syllabus
choose the performances they would give and the competitions they would enter - another +1 for relatedness since presumably the whole class felt bought in to the longer-term goals they were collectively aiming towards
and finally, my favourite, each student could choose when they took their music exam. So, instead of having everyone fit their practice around the same schedule and take exams on the same day—an arbitrary day when some students might not have been in the right head space for an exam—they simply notified the teacher when they felt ready to be examined. And if that's not cool enough, the other benefit of doing it this way was that if anyone failed their exam, they had time to do more practice and retake it at another point in the year, instead of only having one bite of the cherry at the end of term
To put into perspective how successful these measures were at fostering student appetite for music practice, in just a couple of years since taking over the class, the teacher, using SDT, grew the program from 45 students to over 200.
The school had to hire extra staff and they even had to start turning students away because of capacity issues.
Reflecting on the measures the music teacher took, the big obvious insight here is in giving students choice.
But not just any old choices; they were choices skilfully tied to all the significant parts of a music education: instruments, songs, peers, performances, grades, and more.
By doing it this way, students emerge having experienced what it's like to weigh up options, make their own decisions, set goals, work as individuals and as a team, be accountable, and negotiate, compromise and manage any conflict arising from their choices, so that presumably by the time they leave school and enter the unforgiving world of professional music, they already know how to steer their own ship and how good it feels doing so.
What's really cool too is seeing how the three psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness actually beget one another. Choosing the right instrument (even if it takes some trial and error) means you're more likely to practice and get good, thereby increasing your competence. Becoming competent in turn is more likely to endear you to your peers and result in you being invited to participate in further opportunities, thereby strengthening your connections and sense of belonging.
I can't help but think about ways in which parents, teachers and other guardians could empower young people in transformative ways just by taking time to consider how they can extend them more decision-making opportunities.
What if, resources allowing, you let your kids choose their own school, for example? They might be a bit too young to choose a primary school, but would it be completely bonkers to let them choose their secondary school? Maybe some parents already do!
Or, a topic that’s close to my heart: travel. What about letting your kids choose the holiday you go on as a family? I mean the whole thing—the country, the town, the length of stay, the type of holiday, the climate, activities, clothes, all that jazz.
There are probably plenty of "supposedly adult" decisions that the average parent thinks they must make that could actually be given to kids with potentially amazing/interesting results.
Where should we live?
What car should we drive?
What pet should we get?
Where should we shop?
What should we buy?
Who should our friends be?
How should we spend our leisure time?
OK, I'm maybe getting a bit carried away now. But the essential idea here excites me a lot.
It obviously would need careful design (too much choice could become a paralysis, for example, or even something dangerous), but in principle I'm very much in favour of the idea of empowering people as early as possible to step into autonomy and experience its transformative power.
Honestly I'm feeling quite giddy now to go and find some real stories of adults who've let their kids make adult decisions and have lived to tell the tale!
You'll be the first to know when I find any.
What about you? Were you given an unusual level of autonomy when you were young? Perhaps you were sent on errands across town when you could barely walk. Maybe you were driving your dad’s tractor before your feet could even reach the pedals.
Or, maybe you had the opposite experience and you feel you could and should have been given more opportunity to make your own choices as a child.
If you’ve got a story to tell, do tell, I’d love to talk to you about it.
See you next time!
—Harrison 👨🎨
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https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/theory/
Huh!!! Did I give you a copy of my book, Harrison? If so, the travel+education stories in there from our year of traveling the world with tell you exactly what I think about your exploration!
Later, I recall one summer when we were running a painting company, so it was challenging for us to be away from the office, but we wanted the kids to feel like they had fun. We gave the three a budget, access to the household desktop and taught them how to use excel. It was a summer olympic year. They created a full week's schedule of home cooked exploration meals, tied around key olympic events we watched together, used the budget for go-carting and other "olympic" events where they earned medals, organized movies, reading at B&N, the works. As you can see, I remember this vacation more vividly than all the ones I planned before and since for them!
I think Ramit Sethi talks about whenever he plans a trip everyone who goes is responsible for choosing an activity for one of the days...it's important for everyone on the trip to have stakes and buy into the adventure.