Self-motivation

by Kumaravel Jagasivamani

May 22, 2002

Many people cannot get the motivation to learn something new by themselves. Only when they are in a structured learning environment like a classroom will they be able to progress in a timely fashion. Why is that? Is it the fault of the individual or the educational system that causes the person to depend on the system?

I believe that the educational system has more than its fair share for lack of motivation. Only doing things that earn high grades for a course are considered valuable: students sees that by just knowing how to solve one problem without understanding how it works, he gets good grades. Therefore, there is no motivation for him to spend time to truly understand the subject. It is only logical that the student applies the same yardstick wh en she is trying to learn a new subject. It takes a great deal of effort on the student's part to give himself the reason to learn something when he could be watching TV. He is not going to see any immediate fortune as a result of his learning something new; as a result, there is no motivation.

What is important is that the student sets small milestones that he or she would be proud of achieving knowing that hte subject is totally foreign to them. When they achieve such goals, it would goad them into setting higher goals by providing more confidence in themselves. This might seem that we are caving into the reward system proliferated by the educational system. However, all I am saying is that the student ignores the standard reward system of the educational system. They could create their own reward system that they feel is meaningful to them. Hopefully, the educational system would also come around to this conclusion and provide more importance in ensuring that the student learns things and not just passes exams.