MOTIVATION

Motivation

Researchers like Dewey and later also Perkins and Tishman showed that intelligent behaviour cannot be explained by skills alone (Perkins et al. 2000) (Perkins, Jay & Tishman 1993). Without motivation, a person will not be inclined to exhibit certain behaviour. Motivation as a component of disposition is thus the drive that learners feel to take action (Tishman & Andrade 1996) (Perkins et al. 2000). This is about wanting to deploy available knowledge and thinking processes when facing a societal issue.

In the context of the disposition to think and act consciously, it is a pitfall to regard pupil motivation as a precondition for action. This implies that the pupils must already be motivated, whereas motivation (as a meaningful component of disposition) is precisely what good teaching can inculcate (Biggs 2003). Teachers can try to stimulate this through the way they design a powerful learning environment - the ESD experimental environment (about which more below). We emphasise try because, as Gert Biesta (2020) points out, education is by definition subject to the risk that our learning activities do not have the desired effect. There is always the risk that pupils will take the liberty of turning away from the education offered.

Motivation as part of a disposition is the drive we feel to use certain knowledge and thinking processes.

Knowledge

We need knowledge to function in the world. We use it in our daily lives to understand and gain insight into the things around us. This in turn helps us to deal with the issues in our private lives, our professional lives, and in society (Perkins 1992).

Building up knowledge is therefore one of the important goals of education. Djapo follows the vision of David Perkins, who sees knowledge as dynamic. It is not something you just ‘have’, but something you ‘use’ (Perkins 1986) (Perkins 1992). In school practice, this means that knowledge is gained by using it, for example by thinking about societal issues. In this way, we do not only think about knowledge, but also with knowledge.

Which is why Djapo uses the term ‘thinking-based education’ - education in which knowledge is not approached as something you first acquire, and which then enables you to do something with it, but the other way round: knowledge as something you acquire by doing something with it.

Knowledge is therefore a very active concept. We build it up by working with it and, above all, we want to be able to use it. In this sense, knowledge is something that plays a part in the application of a disposition. Without knowledge, you have nothing to think with or about. Just as, without the sensitivity or motivation to engage in certain thinking processes, knowledge is useless.

Knowledge, as a component of a disposition is something we build up by using it.