Fifty years on, what strikes me most in revisiting Diary entries from 1975-1980 is not the content of what I was studying, but the conditions under which I was expected to learn.
At boarding school, Mowden Hall and then Sedbergh, learning was overwhelmingly extrinsically structured. Time was organised on my behalf: prep at a fixed hour, in a fixed place, under supervision. One did not choose to learn; one complied with a system in which learning was the expected output. The motivation, therefore, sat largely outside the learner—embedded in routine, discipline, and, if necessary, sanction. Sitting still at a desk did not mean I was learning anything at all. If anything, it was an antithesis to learning – a resistance to learning taken up by sketching, thumbing through a magazine or reading a novel, or just tossing notes around to fellow inmates in the Junior common room.
There is, of course, a functional logic to this. For many, particularly younger learners, such scaffolding is essential. It creates the conditions for learning to occur, even if the learner has not yet developed the internal drive to sustain it independently. In this sense, extrinsic motivation acts as a kind of prosthetic structure—a substitute for what has not yet formed within. How many parents had to enforce the homework rule? I’m sure they did. Mine had never had to.
What becomes apparent in the transition to sixth form is how abruptly this scaffolding can be removed.
As a day boy at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, from September 1978, I encountered something altogether different: discretion. There was no enforced prep. No master pacing the room. No institutional insistence that I sit at a desk for ninety minutes. Instead, I was left with a choice—arguably, for the first time—to determine the extent and nature of my own engagement with learning. I had a room of my own in which to achieve this – a corner of my bedroom set up as a private study space.
What follows is revealing.
Rather than reducing effort, I found myself increasing it. Evenings that had once been externally imposed became internally driven. I would sit from 7:00 to 10:00, not because I had to, but because I had decided to. The activity—reading, note-taking, working through ideas—became something closer to what might be called indulgent learning, though not in a pejorative sense. My target was News at Ten.
Here, the term “indulgence” begins to shift in meaning. What might appear from the outside as optional or even excessive engagement is, from the inside, characterised by absorption, curiosity, and a growing sense of ownership. This aligns closely with what contemporary learning theory would recognise as intrinsic motivation: engagement driven by interest, enjoyment, or perceived value in the activity itself.
The contrast is instructive:
- Extrinsic learning: compliance with externally imposed structure
- Intrinsic learning: self-directed engagement sustained by internal reward
Yet the relationship between the two is not binary. Rather, they form a developmental continuum.
Reframing the Learning Types Through Motivation
Looking back at some of my earlier categories of learning picked up during my MA in Open Education at the OU —Indulgent, Aspirational, Applied, and Compulsory—it becomes clear that each can be understood through the lens of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Compulsory Learning sits most clearly at the extrinsic end. It is driven by obligation, often accompanied by minimal personal investment. The learner’s primary goal is not understanding, but completion or avoidance of negative consequences. While necessary in certain contexts (as in military or safety-critical training), it rarely produces deep or sustained learning unless internalisation occurs.
Aspirational Learning occupies a more complex middle ground. It is often initiated extrinsically—by a qualification or a job requirement—but may evolve into intrinsic engagement as the learner begins to identify with the domain. The motivation here is transitional: one starts for external reasons, but may continue for internal ones.
Applied Learning represents a further shift. Here, knowledge is not only acquired but used. The feedback loop between action and outcome strengthens intrinsic motivation: competence breeds confidence, which in turn sustains further effort. The learning becomes self-reinforcing.
Indulgent Learning, perhaps the most misunderstood category, sits firmly within the intrinsic domain. This is learning pursued for its own sake—driven by curiosity, fascination, or even obsession. What may appear frivolous externally is, in fact, often the most powerful form of learning internally. It is here that depth, creativity, and unexpected trajectories emerge.
Indeed, many professional pathways seem, in retrospect, to originate in such “indulgences”—areas explored without immediate purpose that later acquire significance through opportunity or application.
The Role of Structure: From External to Internal
What my own experience highlights is not the superiority of one form over the other, but the importance of timing and transition.
Extrinsic structures are necessary—particularly in early stages—to establish habits, exposure, and baseline competence. However, if they persist without evolution, they risk suppressing the very intrinsic motivation required for advanced learning.
The critical shift occurs when structure becomes internalised.
In my case, the removal of imposed prep did not lead to disengagement, but to the emergence of self-regulation. The discipline remained, but its source changed. What had been externally enforced became internally chosen.
This aligns closely with later theoretical developments, particularly in self-determination theory, where autonomy is identified as a key driver of motivation. When learners perceive themselves as agents of their own learning, engagement deepens.
A Final Observation
Perhaps the most telling realisation is this – at boarding school, I learned how to sit at a desk.
At sixth form, I began to learn how to learn.
The former was necessary. The latter was transformative.
And it is in that transition—from being made to learn, to choosing to learn—that education, in its fullest sense, begins.
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