Judaic studies teachers often fret that graduates have neither enough textual content or skills, nor strong enough ritually observant behavior. While perhaps valid, the greater concern should be about a student’s desire to pursue a deep relationship with the Divine. The time and energy to teach one more textual skill becomes irrelevant if the student does not want to live a God-connected life. The journey through years at a Jewish day school should help students develop into intrinsically-motivated God seekers.
An individual’s intrinsic motivations stem from a variety of factors. The development of a new intrinsic motivation grows out of a series of circumstances based both in the environment and within an individual.
While a classroom laced with curiosity may encourage the growth of intrinsic motivation in one student, a classroom based on cooperation may encourage that growth in another student.
Further, some students have emotional baggage that hinders intrinsic motivation growth. Instead of promoting one format to create intrinsic motivation or encouragement, a teacher should consider individual, complicated factors for embedding intrinsic motivation in a student.
Psychologists such as Ryan and Deci as well as Hennessey point to factors in the environment that facilitate students cultivating intrinsic motivation. Some involve the removal of negative factors such as expected reward, expected evaluation, restricted choice, restricted time, and negative surveillance. Some influences involve the addition of positive factors such as modified autonomy, appropriately challenging tasks, recognition by teachers, and mastery of a topic. Optimally, the teacher will help each student find intrinsic motivations from among the methods employed in class. At that point, the student will need guidance to inculcate the motivation and “own it.” An example of this is the growth of intrinsic motivation in tefillah (prayer).
In many Jewish day schools, tefillah programs incorporate many of the factors that harm the growth of intrinsic motivation. Some teachers reward students with praise or prizes, which encourages the students to employ shortcuts to receive the extrinsic motivator. Often, the tefillah activity lacks choice and creativity. Unfortunately, tefillah usually includes a plethora of negative surveillance. This leads to tefillah being more of a “police action” and less of a nurturing place of Divine connection.
Instead, we could reimagine tefillah that focuses on developing intrinsic motivation. During tefillah time, a teacher might capitalize on the imagination and empathy found in students.
Rabbinic writers such as the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, early 1700’s) point to the will of the person praying as literally constructing a being of energy to do the good of the prayer. That image gave middle schoolers I worked with much to think about, namely, that their actions have ramifications in prayer. This positively addresses a deep issue of developmental psychology, that middle school students often do not think what they do matters (for both good and ill). If they personalize images in tefillah, when the students leave the presence of teachers, the students will more likely want to pray and even form a relationship with the Author of Humanity. This type of work turns students from failure avoiders into success seekers.
Visualize a class where intrinsically motivated students look forward to unraveling the mysteries of learning with the teacher as the mentor. The ancient texts, intensive skills, and sacred rituals shift from being just measurements of classroom success to tools by which to live the religion. Teachers should partner with students to foster their own unique intrinsic motivations, as this activity would allow Jewish day schools to meet the mission of producing God seekers.