The skeptical question!

A few days ago, my campus watched Daniel Pink's TED Talk about motivation.  In my opinion, it speaks directly to educators about how people are motivated.   I have watched it several times, read his books, and participated in many hours of professional conversation about motivation.  I am not an expert, but I am passionately interested!

After the video, I asked folks to throw out only questions.  No comments or judgments, only questions.  I loved it!  A typical campus conversation following a TED Talk usually includes comments that either agree or disagree with specific things that the speaker shared.  By starting with questions, we held off the judgments!  By starting with questions, we expanded the conversation and included a broader range of possibility.  It was awesome!

For some folks, myself included, it was tough to keep our opinions on hold!  After quite a few questions that were purposely reflective, I could tell that a few passionate folks wanted to share opinions.  A few of the questions were stated in a way that communicated an opinion.

At first, the questions were, "How can we give more autonomy in order to improve their intrinsic motivation?"  After some time, a few questions sounded like, "How could we translate his research about adults in the business world to kids in our schools?"

Perhaps there was a bit of judgment in this question.  Neverthess, it was a GREAT question!!!  I loved it!  When a professional is skeptical of a new idea, their thoughts
help us all think!  Especially their questions!