Theory Y and Learning
Douglas McGregor's Theory Y, as described in
his "The Human Side of Enterprise", says two
things about workers and students.
First, he says, anyone will enjoy work and find
great reward in nothing more than a job well
done, but only under the right conditions,
including that they be allowed to use their own
initiative and assess their own work. Money or
academic honors pale in comparison to those
rewards, witness the many people who pass on
more pay to take more rewarding jobs, or young
people who slave for hours mastering a video
game at the expense of their grades in school.
Second, McGregor says that this positive energy
and independence produces better work -- more
of it and more inventive -- than one gets with
mere threats of job loss, demotion, or bad
grades in school. Those are the things used by
believers in Theory X to get work out of people.
McGregor described Theory X as an attitude that
views students as unwilling performers from
whom desired behavior is to be elicited with the
rewards of good grades and honors and threats
of bad grades, and whose activities were to be
dictated by the teacher.
The Theory X teacher believes things would go
just fine if students would just do exactly as the
teacher says. But what if the task complexity
and absent feedback make success unlikely,
and the compulsory atmosphere suppresses
their natural survival skills? Then they do not in
fact perform the tasks as prescribed. Any
creativity applied goes into avoiding work.
Learning suffers.
Most would have trouble buying the alternative
Theory Y image of kids working hard at learning
Algebra just for the satisfaction of it. They think
the problem lies in kids seeing no relevance of
Algebra to daily life. "When am I ever going to
use this?" Humorist Fran Lebowitz answers:
his "The Human Side of Enterprise", says two
things about workers and students.
First, he says, anyone will enjoy work and find
great reward in nothing more than a job well
done, but only under the right conditions,
including that they be allowed to use their own
initiative and assess their own work. Money or
academic honors pale in comparison to those
rewards, witness the many people who pass on
more pay to take more rewarding jobs, or young
people who slave for hours mastering a video
game at the expense of their grades in school.
Second, McGregor says that this positive energy
and independence produces better work -- more
of it and more inventive -- than one gets with
mere threats of job loss, demotion, or bad
grades in school. Those are the things used by
believers in Theory X to get work out of people.
McGregor described Theory X as an attitude that
views students as unwilling performers from
whom desired behavior is to be elicited with the
rewards of good grades and honors and threats
of bad grades, and whose activities were to be
dictated by the teacher.
The Theory X teacher believes things would go
just fine if students would just do exactly as the
teacher says. But what if the task complexity
and absent feedback make success unlikely,
and the compulsory atmosphere suppresses
their natural survival skills? Then they do not in
fact perform the tasks as prescribed. Any
creativity applied goes into avoiding work.
Learning suffers.
Most would have trouble buying the alternative
Theory Y image of kids working hard at learning
Algebra just for the satisfaction of it. They think
the problem lies in kids seeing no relevance of
Algebra to daily life. "When am I ever going to
use this?" Humorist Fran Lebowitz answers:
- Stand firm in your refusal to remain
conscious during algebra class.
In real life, I assure you, there is no such
thing as algebra.
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The good news, says Theory Y, is that we do not
need to sell kids on relevance to daily life. Under
the right conditions, any of us will respond to a
decent challenge with solid effort that leads to
observable small successes that pull us back for
more challenge and improvement as we
anticipate again the thrill of success.
Sound crazy? How else can we explain the
popularity of newspaper word puzzles or bridge
or chess columns or the sudoku craze. Good
luck finding the relevance of sudoku to anything,
and crossword puzzles -- what are they?
Completely arbitrary challenges to which anyone
can get addicted. Pac Man is relevant? Not!
And what makes video games addictive? The
graphics and sound and story lines? No, look at
the addictiveness of The Mario Brothers (awful
graphics and sound) on a handheld two-inch
screen. And if those things are so great, why do
games get put away forever once a player
"beats" the game?
So why are kids persisting at frustrating games
and not Algebra? Theory Y. Let us look at game
play as McGregor would. Here.
need to sell kids on relevance to daily life. Under
the right conditions, any of us will respond to a
decent challenge with solid effort that leads to
observable small successes that pull us back for
more challenge and improvement as we
anticipate again the thrill of success.
Sound crazy? How else can we explain the
popularity of newspaper word puzzles or bridge
or chess columns or the sudoku craze. Good
luck finding the relevance of sudoku to anything,
and crossword puzzles -- what are they?
Completely arbitrary challenges to which anyone
can get addicted. Pac Man is relevant? Not!
And what makes video games addictive? The
graphics and sound and story lines? No, look at
the addictiveness of The Mario Brothers (awful
graphics and sound) on a handheld two-inch
screen. And if those things are so great, why do
games get put away forever once a player
"beats" the game?
So why are kids persisting at frustrating games
and not Algebra? Theory Y. Let us look at game
play as McGregor would. Here.
