The role of motivation in education

We live in a world where the most valuable currency someone might posses is
knowledge. Information flows all around us, spreading like wildfire. At the moment, people
are a click away from finding out almost anything they would ever want to know. Practically,
we are lucky enough to have been born in the most advantageous era of humanity, in what
concerns intelectual developpement.
Yet, how much does this overabundance of possibilities help students when it comes to
studying? I strongly believe that if someone does not know how to find some sort of
motivation in the process of learning, all the chances they are offered vanish.
We forget that motivation is the strongest and most important aspect in education,
because if we mantain it and let it flourish, everything comes naturally. Many of us do things
because we ​have to. T ​ hereby, we do not focus on the joy of the task’s experience, but in
finishing it as fast as possible.
Sadly, this phenomena occurs very often among students. In their perception, exams and
grades are the main purpose of studying. This represents an example for extrinsic
motivation, which, up to a point, works well enough. You study in order to pass a test -
perfectly normal. But what happens when you get overwhelmed by pressure, when the first
panick attack appears at the thought of how much of your time and energy you must invest
in an action that drains you? Obviously, it is not the right approach on the long run.
At this point, intrinsic motivation should step in. What is it, more exactly? We may call it
passsion, dedication, love for the work we do. I think it is the most accurately defined by an
endless curiosity which comes from within us, generating a never-ending source of energy.
All the great names’ work (not only from the domain of psychology) have been gouverned by
intrinsic motivation, by the thirst of finding out more and more and getting closer to the truth.
Students, though, often find it difficult to search deep inside for this state of being. We are
curious, but we are confused. In highschool, we are not taught how to love what we learn,
but to memorize as fast and as much as possible, because we need the grades. This way,
many of us start university with misconceptions about the genuine process of studying.
The answear for all students’ anxiety is to stop for a second, become aware of what they
are doing in that very moment (because in many ways, we become automatic) and let
themselves be entirely absorbed by the soul-uplifting feeling of getting to know a little bit
more about the world around them.