Autonomy is our ability to be self-directed, independent and free from all outside control. This independence helps contribute to the sense of competence and successful working relationships with others. Daniel Pink’s book Drive dives into the topic of Autonomy and how he relates it to human motivation through describing examples of his own experiences and experiences of others. Through student’s scholastic endeavors you get a mixture of autonomous classes and non-autonomous classes, having teachers give you the freedoms or making you conform to their rules. While in middle school students go from class to class each having their own rules and requirements, in high school they can choose between a few choices of classes usually electives but other than that it still is mostly controlled. Moving into college the game changes, going to college is a choice and taking certain classes are required by the major a student chooses. Having this autonomy in an educational situation is more encouraging and provides self-motivation because students are in complete control over the rest of their educational career. …show more content…
Being given the freedom to decide one's own direction in life is basic to human nature and works in conjunction with relatedness and aptitude. Pink’s words classify Autonomous Motivation by having, “a full sense of volition and choice… whereas controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand … perceived to be external to the self’” (Pink 90). When given a project, autonomy can allow us to choose when we are most constructive, how we perform the task and who can we work alongside. By making choices, we define what is personally important to enhance our sense of self and