Exposing five myths about motivation
Natalie, a two-month-old newborn, alerts herself as a familiar voice — soft, musical, loving — approaches. Her eyebrows lift, her body relaxes, and an oval shape forms on her tiny pink mouth as she speaks: “Goo Goo Gaa Gaa.” When Natalie sees the face connected to this voice, her eyes light up, grow wide, and fix upon the sight of her mother. Saving the best for last, Natalie beams back a baby’s love by igniting her million-megawatt smile. All of Natalie’s behaviors, including baby talk and smiling, occur without the need for a teacher, textbook or a school building. They occur 100% outside of the process called learning. Her motor movement system, which will allow her to crawl, climb and walk, and her sensory systems, which give her the ability to see, hear, touch, taste and smell, are activated by pre-packaged, inborn reflexes which occur automatically. In this sense, all infants start life on an equal footing, determined by genetically hardwired reflexes. So far, so