Why is reading an enormous pleasure for some children and a misery for others? The readers devour practically anything they can get their hands on. The others stumble through a page or so and often have a hard time remembering a single thing they've read. Technically speaking, the second group may be literate, but the painful decoding of words that passes for reading won't be much of a help on the job or in their private lives.
The problem for most youngsters, according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor of psychology and education at the University of Chicago, is not one of intelligence but of motivation. These kids don't want to read. They don't see what's in it for them. People, Csikszentmuhalyi observes, aren't like computers, which "will follow logical steps as long as they are plugged into the wall and the appropriate software gets booted up." People will "think logically" -- and learn to read beyond the bear minimum that is pounded into them in elementary school -- "only when they feel like it."
Csikszentmihalyi' s discussion, which explores making people "feel like it," appears in the latest issue of the journal Daedalus, devoted to "Literacy in America," along with excellent articles by Howard Gardner, Daniel Resnick, Lauren Resnick and others. And it has implications not just for literacy but for learning and teaching other things as well.
Motivation can be extrinsic or intrinsic. We are using extnns1c motivation when we encourage students to become literate because that will get them good grades and, eventually, good jobs. But our efforts at extrinsic motivation are often unsuccessful because kids don't believe us or because they don't care. So Csikszentmihalyi suggests that we concentrate instead on intrinsic motivation - on getting students to read because it's a pleasure.
How is it possible to do this? Csikszentmihalyi points to the self-forgetfulness of the mountain climber, absorbed in reaching the peak, or of the chess player caught up in the game. Csikszentmihalyi calls this a "flow experience," and the elements that create this intense and pleasurable involvement also work for readers -- or for people learning or practicing any kind of skill.
One basic requirement is that the challenge of the activity be well matched with the person's skills; good tennis players don't get much pleasure out of playing poor ones (and vice versa). Another requirement of a flow experience is that the activity have clear goals and that the person get immediate feedback. The goal -- getting to the top of the mountain or the end of the chess game -- gives the person something specific to strive for. The feedback answers the question, "How am I doing?" When these elements are in balance, the activity can become intrinsically rewarding. The more the person climbs or plays chess, the better he gets and the more he wants to do it. All this holds for reading, too.
If this is so straightforward, why aren't we turning out a nation of readers? Unfortunately, Csikszentmihalyi points out, the way most of our schools are organized makes it hard to get kids internally motivated to read.
The lucky children come to school already sold on reading because people in their families have read to them. But kids who have no prior experience with reading have a harder time. They don't know the pleasure of losing themselves in a story, and given the way things are set up, it may be hard for them to find out.
Part of the problem is the standardized reading texts and workbooks. As Csikszentmihalyi says, they "make life easier for teachers and administrators, but they make it very difficult for students to get involved with material at the level that is right for them." As a result, most children "are faced with challenges that are either meaningless to them or that are inappropriate to their levels of skill." And they can't connect with what they read, they certainly can't become involved in it.
Moreover, the goals of the people who choose and write the textbook series have nothing to do with what children might like or be interested in: "Textbooks are usually chosen because they illustrate abstract principles, in conformity with the theoretical orientations of the curriculum designers, not because they relate to students' interests, goals, and abilities." So no wonder students feel "estranged" from their canned curriculums.
Csikszentmihalyi quotes some first graders who know exactly why they want to read and write: "One boy wants to be able to read the paper in the morning to know 'what's going on in the world,' as his father does; another wants to keep up with his favorite football team in the sport pages; a girl wants to learn to read so she can be a doctor and make people well. Compared with these concerns, the usual diet of Dick and Jane pabulum must seem depressingly trivial."
The problems that keep students from developing an internal motivation to read come out of our factory schools and out of a top-down system that victimizes teachers at the same time as it makes kids passive rather than active learners. Or, as Csikszentmihalyi might put it, instead of learners who, in meeting challenges and striving to achieve goals, lose themselves in the pleasure of the work.