Thiebaut Method

Causes: Education, Educational Services

Mission: What do you think about when you envision youth doing community service? If you're like most people, you probably think of a high schooler doing community service to satisfy their credit requirements. In other words, you think of a student who is extrinsically motivated to help others. At TM, we are rethinking the motivation youth have to help others from being extrinsically motivated to intrinsically motivated. We call being intrinsically motivated to help others, "helping from the heart", and we teach youth to help from the heart because of the benefits this type of motivation confers on youth. Research on helping others, called “prosocial activity”, shows that being intrinsically motivated to help others conveys many benefits to youth. For example, in her book, “Teaching For Purpose: Preparing Students For Lives of Meaning”, Heather Malin, Director of Research at Stanford University’s Center on Adolescence, states that: “Given the benefits of having beyond-the-self purpose, we might be inclined to require students to engage in prosocial activities, such as community service or volunteering. Prosocial activities are associated with many of the same psychological benefits found in studies of purpose, including increased energy, well-being, self-regulation, self-esteem, and sense of mattering. However, people only see the benefits from their prosocial activities when they are intrinsically motivated, that is, when they make their own decisions about what to do because they are personally motivated to get involved. They do not get these benefits when they are required to do them or when they do them for instrumental reasons, such as for college applications or to boost their grade. The question, then, is how to create an environment where students are motivated to engage in prosocial activity without coercion or external incentives.” (p.61) Keep reading at https://www.thiebautmethod.org/about-us