THE POWER OF AUTONOMY
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for everything from taking attendance to changing slides to some of the lesson planning.
Why not trust them to practice exercising some of the empowerment we hope they’ ll feel as adults? With opportunities for ownership and self-direction, students of all ages gladly accept developmentally appropriate levels of responsibility, which then fuel the pursuit of competence, relatedness, and more autonomy.
I encourage other educators to test these premises for themselves. If all humans share the basic needs SDT posits, schools everywhere can and should do more to nourish them. Then learning might look more like the exciting process of self-discovery and transmission of interests and values we know in our hearts it can be.
A last word from Ryan and Deci clarifies what is at stake for educators and students alike:
Comparisons between people whose motivation is authentic( literally, selfauthored or endorsed) and those who are merely externally controlled for an action typically reveal that the former, relative to the latter, have more interest, excitement, and confidence, which in turn is manifest both as enhanced performance, persistence, and creativity, self-esteem, and general well-being( Ryan & Deci).
“ Why not trust them to practice exercising some of the empowerment we hope they’ ll feel as adults?
”
Even without a social transformation, it’ s possible to adopt more of these findings and integrate them into our lives, including our work in schools. Indeed, let’ s see how well all of us can be. •
Works Cited
Center for Self Determination Theory.“ Theory.” selfdeterminationtheory. org / theory /.
Chirkov, V., Ryan, R. M., Kim, Y., & Kaplan, U.( 2003).“ Differentiating autonomy from individualism and independence: A selfdetermination theory perspective on internalization of cultural orientations and well-being.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84( 1), p. 98.
Deci, E. L., Ryan, R. M., Schultz, P. P., & Niemiec, C. P.( 2015).“ Being aware and functioning fully: Mindfulness and interest taking within self-determination theory.” In K. W. Brown, J. D. Creswell, & R. M. Ryan( Eds.), Handbook of Mindfulness: Theory, Research, and Practice( p. 116). The Guilford Press.
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