Through Bein' Cool: Devo and Motivation

        Yes, that's Devo, the rock group out of Akron, Ohio, famous for "Whip It" and red flower pots for hats. They released an almost intentionally dorky tune (with a matching low-budget video) on their "New Traditionalists" album called "Through Bein' Cool," with advice to all of the strange and misfit teens of the time...

"...If you live in a small town
You might meet a dozen or two
Young alien types who step out
And dare to declare
We're through bein' cool..."

The band was actually pretty serious about the issue of conformity. Their name, Devo, was an intentional play on "de-evolution." It reflected their concern that humanity had actually begun to regress, citing the intense herd mentality of American society (and teens!) as evidence.

       Devo's interest in the effects of conformity were more artistic and satiric, but there is plenty of research out there showing that, in fact, a lack of personal expression and autonomy actually contributes to a variety of physical and psychological problems. Huffington Post blogger and self-styled "work-life balance/stress management trainer" Joe Robinson cites dozens of articles in his blog entry "Don't Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Problem With Being Cool" (Oct. 13, 2010)...

"...Being cool is supposed to make us irresistibly confident in our up-to-the-minute blase-ness, but it actually feeds insecurity with the false belief that popularity or a certain image is needed for validation. The research shows that real self-worth comes from internal goals that satisfy values and needs that are actually your own, such as autonomy and growth, the polar opposite of the external approval circuit..."

       A lot of the "research" underlying these ideas comes from the work of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, an unlikely pair of social scientists from the University of Rochester, described in some detail in Daniel Pink's new book on motivation in business, Drive. The underlying assumption in business is that the motivation to succeed originates from external sources -- pay bonuses and high salaries, or, alternatively, the threat of sanctions or other deterents. In education, we've built an entire superstructure around this concept, from high-stakes testing and school assessment processes, to teacher merit pay and other performance incentives. None of it, say Deci, Ryan and Pink, works. As a matter of fact, this sort of approach is actually counter-productive, reducing creativity, productivity, and personal satisfaction and happiness.

       I truly celebrate the anytime, any place nature of digital social connections, and they have great implications for how and why we learn. But two recent events have caused me to, once again, ponder whether the tech-focused among us really have a handle on things, or are we just trying to be cool like our kids.

Teachers Weigh In

       "...If we were to offer something significant for a prize, incentive, reward, benefit, etc., what would you like? We are thinking something in the category of a tool or resource that would help your organization be more effective..." ...was a posting to a discussion list of a professional organization to which I belong. When cooler heads finally prevailed, the resultant discussion was quite interesting and revealing. But that had to wait for the chorus of "A new iPad!!!" postings to die down.

A Student's Spin.
       A student taking my online course on open-source web applications -- a pretty powerful and tech-savvy junior who has produced marketable software of his own, and participated in our superintendant's student advisery council on technology in the classroom.-- has often mentioned his lack of interest in the use of smart/personal devices like phones and PDAs. "Real learning" he states "takes place with paper and pencil tasks...games and online activities are just a distraction."

The Results?

       Needless to say, these anecdotes have no obvious connection, and they, even together, prove absolutely nothing of substance about learning and motivation. Despite my high school student's observations, I will, as I mentioned, continue to be an advocate for inexpensive and ubiquitous computing devices, and the connections they bring us. Besides, I suspect that our young spokesman probably will be using such tools to learn and work when he's no longer in high school (if he's not already using them now).
       But the contrast to be gained from their juxtaposition, still, could not be more striking. What the adult members of the discussion list (educators, all) were saying was that a very popular device was a great "...prize, incentive, reward, benefit..." In fact, that's not what research, and our example student, are saying. People (including students) owning the learning process, and owning its results, is how that works. If we want to engage and motivate our students, then we can't assume that access to cool devices will do that for us, and "access to tools" does not, in itself, translate into student ownership of the learning process. It must be a pre-existing lesson design piece, a specific pedagogical decision which does not depend on the physical details of the lesson. It can, in fact, be a part of a paper and pencil lesson.
       Students are kids. They're heavily invested in "being cool," and a lot of that motivation is driving their own use patterns for computers, smart phones, and other such devices. That is exactly what caused my student's observation that interactive games and other computer experiences were a waste of time -- what he saw was students taking those opportunities and abusing them to pursue what was interesting to them. Those use patterns are heavily influenced by their own herd mentality, their own sense of "cool." If a teacher selects a tool, or an online experience, for how much s/he perceives it fits the students' interests (instead of selecting it for how it supports an otherwise strong lesson), that is the results. We have a lot to learn from our students, but, as teachers, we'll always get into trouble simply trying to be like them, trying to motivate them by giving them what we think they think is cool.

       To leverage the true power of online computing and other technology tools, we need to put the flower pots on our heads, and join Devo. Learning is way too important to simply be driven by our desire to fit in -- with each other or our students. It must be driven by our students' desire to learn, to advance, to succeed. And Deci and Ryan tells us that's got to come from within.

"...Time to clean some house,

Be a man, or a mouse....

Put the tape on erase,

Rearrange a face,

We always liked Picasso anyway.

We're through bein' cool..."