Why We Teach

Education needs to change at the level of the whole system, and this book makes that argument by starting from a claim about human nature: beyond the drive for competence, people have two more innate drives. The author contends that modern schools have largely restricted the drive for autonomy. Structures that do support the drive for meaning exist, yet participants rarely notice them, and the help they receive no longer matches what learners now need.

On this view, systemic change means that teachers and other educators alter how they act so that all three innate drives are fully supported. The book sets out what those altered behaviours look like and describes two distinct shifts in the relationship between educator and student that would bring them about.