Daniel Pink on Motivation

I'm a big fan of Daniel Pink.  A conference I went to spoke about him a lot, so I purchased one of his books and it was well worth the read.  It's amazing how even though he is talking about business, most of it can be transferred over to the education world.

Autonomy, mastery and purpose are often overlooked in my field of I.T.  Luckily, those three traits are incorporated in everything I do, mainly because my current position allows it.  Past employments have not been the same, as there were set guidelines for anything and everything.  I have a certain freedom to do things that a lot of other I.T. departments may not have, such as different software choices, setting up group policies, and so on.  What I would like to talk about here is giving the staff that I work the chance to feel the same.

I want the staff at each school I work for to feel like they have a say in what they use in the classroom, as well as how they use it.  In the past, it felt as if the I.T. department would roll into a classroom, tell them what pieces of equipment they can use, and then proceed to explain how they have to use it.  That was something I never enjoyed doing.  Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy teaching people how to use equipment, but it is much more enjoyable teaching someone how to use something they are excited about.  When a teacher comes to me with ideas of how they want to use a device, I love it.

Getting around what is actually available to staff is a little more difficult.  Business decisions and what money is actually available causes problems in this area, so I'm not going to go into it.

What I would like to do is set up a professional development session that will only be over ideas that the staff comes up with.  Topics will be turned in ahead of time, so I will be able to prepare.  I see this as a different form of the 20% time idea, which we all know is a tough thing to work out in education.  This way the staff, as well as myself, will be excited to take part in professional development.  It won't be the same old things that I love to do, even though those are good choices as well, but we all learn together.