Below is the essay I submitted for the final assignment of my PGCE (2021-22). It didn’t receive a fantastic grade; I strayed too far from the assignment brief, apparently. But for me, personally and professionally, it remains a pivotal piece of work. It brought together my longstanding love of philosophy with a growing passion for education, and it sparked what’s now a deep interest in the psychology of motivation (see About for more details).
In the essay, I reflect on the tension between character education – which ideally aims to develop intrinsically valuable moral virtues – and the use of extrinsic rewards, using my school as a case study. This distinction – between inherent and instrumental value, or intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (see Key concepts) – would become a recurring theme throughout my MA work.
A lot has changed since writing this essay. My school has since adopted a different approach to character education, and I no longer fully agree with all of my arguments. Still, it was undeniably this essay that set me on my current path.
I revist some of these ideas in my first MA essay.