• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content

Dave Stuart Jr.

Teaching Simplified.

  • ABOUT
  • BLOG
  • LATEST VIDEOS
  • COURSES
  • BOOK
  • SPEAKING
  • RESOURCES
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Show Search
Hide Search

How Do I Get There? vs. You Must Go

February 23, 2023 By Dave Stuart Jr. 3 Comments

Longtime blogger Seth Godin once wrote the following:

“It’s more productive to offer directions to someone who has already decided to go on the journey.

It's this idea — which Godin calls “enrollment” — that I'm after when I write constantly about the Five Key Beliefs about student motivation.

What you're seeking is the creation of a classroom in which students genuinely want to do the work of learning, where they do the work because they care to rather than because they've been coerced.

In his book  This is Marketing , Godin goes so far as to say that “there’s no such thing as mandatory education.”

“It’s almost impossible to teach people against their will,” Godin says. “The alternative is voluntary education: gaining enrollment.”

I think sometimes we assume that since schooling is compulsory for children in the United States that an education is, too.

But Godin's right: an education is, always has been, and always will be a partnership. The wise teacher accepts this; she partners herself to this reality; he submits himself, happily, to the inviolable power of the human will.

Very practically, this means we do things like:

  •  Sending Credibility signals , often.
  •  Painting with the full Value palette , often.
  •  Woodenizing all learning behaviors , often.

And so on.

Best, DSJR

P.S. My book Will to Learn is set to come out in just over a month — April 2023. If you liked These 6 Things, you'll love this book — it's the sequel.  Use coupon code DSJR for an exclusive discount.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sara Smith says

    February 23, 2023 at 9:41 am

    :)))

    Reply
  2. Sara says

    February 23, 2023 at 9:42 am

    :)))

    Reply
  3. Missy Dunn says

    February 23, 2023 at 4:09 pm

    School is compulsory but LEARNING is a choice.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Copyright © 2023 ·