Help, I can't find Autonomy on the Roadmap.

This weekend I have been reading a new book by Daniel Pink called Drive. The book discusses what it is that motivates people to do well in their workplace. I picked this book up the weekend on the recommendation of a colleague and to be honest I have skipped ahead to the chapter called Autonomy. I wanted to read this chapter in particular because of the desire that teachers have for more self directed time on early release and waiver days.

So I am just going to share a few excerpts from this chapter.

The idea of management (of people) is built on certain assumptions of the basic nature of those being managed. It presumes that to take action or move forward, we need a prod- that an absent of reward or punishment, we'd remain happily and inertly in place. It also presumes that once people do get moving, they need direction-that without a firm and reliable guide, they'd wander.
But is that really our fundamental nature? Or, to use another computer metaphor, is that our "default setting"? When we enter the world, are we wired to be passive and inert? Or are we wired to be active and engaged? I'm convinced it's the latter- that our basic nature is to be curious and self directed.

In a quote from researchers Deci and Ryan in this chapter, they say "Autonomous motivation involves behaving with a full sense of volition and choice, whereas controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand toward specific outcomes that comes from forces perceived to be external to the self."

So as I am sitting reading this weekend, I cannot help but take these words to heart in a lot of ways. Though I have read more than just the two pages I am taking from, he hits a chord with me when he talks about people not needing prodding but rather autonomy. We are professional educators, we deserve the respect to choose what we need to do with our time to be better teachers, and we need to be given voice, opportunity, and commitment from those that have hired us to do the work of educating our future. The bottom line is that as educators we all are okay with a roadmap of how to get around but it is time to stop being the mapquest with only one set of directions and let us decide how we get there. Let us do what we need to do to get there and let us stop at the rest stops, take a breather, and figure out our journey. And please in the end when we have reached our destination, let us have some time to explore the destination, see the sights, and figure out how to make the destination something memorable that we will want to visit again. Don't just start another trip without knowing that everyone had enough time at the last stop.

We need time to look at the new concepts, explore what works and does not work, and find ways to make sure that each and every child can have quality learning, everyday in every classroom across our schools.