Young children would rather explore than get rewards • Hacker News Board

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#21

Post by dmead » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 4:47 AM UTC

kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

is mastery a new word that's come up in education? i can't help but (red) flag that word in the context of teaching children these days, maybe before the wrong people have said it.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#22

Post by ta1234567890 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 4:55 AM UTC

This video shows a slime mold doing exploration/discovery and then exploitation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GwKuFREOgmo

Relating it to the article, it seems we function in a similar way to the mold, but our balance between exploration and exploitation changes as we grow up.

Also reading other comments, it seems like different people have different balances or proportions between the exploration/exploitation modes. I personally am very imbalanced towards exploration; exploitation makes me demotivate and stop doing very quickly.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#23

Post by ornornor » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 4:56 AM UTC

dmead wrote: post #21

kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

is mastery a new word that's come up in education? i can't help but (red) flag that word in the context of teaching children these days, maybe before the wrong people have said it.

What? Why?

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#24

Post by adrianN » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 4:56 AM UTC

kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

I often see criticism of the school system like yours. I think it comes from a perspective of a fairly intelligent, self-motivated individual, probably from a family that valued education. However many children lack one or more of those factors. For them the intrinsic motivation is to play video games all day, or talk to their friends, or smoke weed. There is no intrinsic motivation for most children to learn all the subjects taught in school. I think the school system is fairly good at forcing all children to learn at least a little about all subjects. This comes at the price of not optimally supporting students who would do much better in a different kind of system.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#25

Post by jiggunjer » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:02 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #8

habitue wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With only 37 adults, there probably wasn't enough power to say anything significant about gender

But even then a statement, “there was no difference between genders, p=...” would have been useful

Not really. Even if there was was medium sized true difference they'd probably not detect it.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#26

Post by skinkestek » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

kqr wrote: post #10

kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

Then again, if one is more interested in practically applicable tips, the book How To Talk So Kids Will Listen... And Listen So Kids Will Talk is great too -- for all kinds of interpersonal relationships. It covers empathy (actually listening and confirming feelings) but is largely about how to enable extrinsic motivation, through encouraging autonomy, mastery, and purpose. One rather concrete example is that the aut…

> More effective, according to the authors, are to give a choice, even if it is somewhat of a forced one: "I want you to take a bath. Do you want to bathe with your boat or your duck?"

This can be so surprisingly effective that it is almost scary. And while I'm at it: it works with many adults too.

Use with caution. Leadership is good and kids needs to go to bed at night, but manipulation isn't what you want to be remembered for.

Other nice-to-knows to be used with caution:

- as kids start to negotiate, add slack for negotiations.

- "catch them" when they do something right, reward it immediately (with encouraging words, a hug, increased trust - or even a piece of chocolate)

- look for the intentions - or anything that was right even if the intent wasn't there:

-- tried to do something right but failed? Good! (On the other side: there's few things as discouraging as gettig a scolding when you thought you did something good.)

-- used to slam the door but closed it carefully for some reason (hands full, in the phone, etc)? Good.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#27

Post by david422 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

jimkleiber wrote: post #14

TIL I mostly think like a 4-year-old.

Very mature for a 3 year old.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#28

Post by adamnemecek » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

op03 wrote: post #7

Academia and Corporations. Academics are dealt with as we do kids i.e. they are protected and allowed to explore. Corporations exploit what has already been explored for reward - without the reward there is nothing protecting them.

Academia really doesn't let you explore.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#29

Post by yellowapple » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #24

kqr wrote: post #4

For anyone interested in this type of stuff, I can recommend reading Drive . Briefly, human behaviour can be motivated for extrinsic and intrinsic reasons. The rewards in this article are extrinsic motivators. Exploring is rewarding in an intrinsic way; it is a strive towards autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In adults (and in older children) applying extrinsic motivators kills intrinsic motivation. Once the extrinsic…

I often see criticism of the school system like yours. I think it comes from a perspective of a fairly intelligent, self-motivated individual, probably from a family that valued education. However many children lack one or more of those factors. For them the intrinsic motivation is to play video games all day, or talk to their friends, or smoke weed. There is no intrinsic motivation for most children to learn all the…

> I often see criticism of the school system like yours. I think it comes from a perspective of a fairly intelligent, self-motivated individual, probably from a family that valued education.

I ain't vain enough to consider myself even "fairly intelligent", but I can say that I ain't very self-motivated, nor have I been since elementary school, and in hindsight my education system's insistence on strangling such intrinsic motivation in favor of extrinsic motivation is exactly what killed said self-motivation. "Grades are all that matter, and mine ain't anywhere near good enough to go to a good college, so why bother trying?"

It's something I'm actively working on trying to fix to this day, but old habits die hard.

Re: Young children would rather explore than get rewards

#30

Post by bergstromm466 » Thu, Aug 13, 2020, 5:27 AM UTC

Has anyone heard of Sudbury Valley schools?

Peter Hartkamp started one in the Netherlands, and wrote a book about it.

“Our current education systems do not trust children to learn what they need to know. Governments believe that children must be coerced into learning what they prescribe as necessary for future life even though they do not and cannot know what that future will be like. Yet we do know that coercion produces anxiety and fear of failure and that this in turn inhibits learning and destroys confidence. We also know that creativity, innovation and empathy are not encouraged in such a climate even though above all else these are the survival qualities for coping with an uncertain future.

In this short book Peter Hartkamp develops his arguments against coercive ‘education’ with a needle-sharp engineer’s logic. He invites us to imagine what schools would be like if they took the articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child seriously, a not unreasonable position as all states are signatories.

I wholeheartedly and without reservation recommend this book to the many parents, students, teachers, employers and policy makers who know in their hearts that something is very wrong with the examination and testing factories that we are allowing our schools to become. It represents a beacon of hope that another way is possible.” [1]

[1] http://hetgedwongenonderwijsvoorbij.nl/en/