Musings on Motivation

If I had to summarize my formal teaching experience in one word, I'd pick motivation. In teaching a high-needs community, I had to motivate my students on a daily basis. I often felt like I fulfilled the role of a parent when I motivated them to come to school. For some, I kept some snacks (healthy, of course!) on hand, so they didn't have to eat the frozen school breakfast when there was nothing at home. For others, I had pens stuffed away in a secret drawer because organization just wasn't in the cards for them. Another group of students required a song and dance. Literally, a song, as I would sometimes play music while they worked. Several students I promised I would hand deliver photocopies during my prep to their classroom if they lost an important one. Of course, I always made time on my calendar to fit in school events, like sporting events and proms. Then, at nine different instance, I attended student's funerals. These were the paths I took to motivate my students to attend school and engage in learning.

Motivation in a literacy-based classroom isn't just about "getting students to read," but rather about pushing students to engage with the reading. Literacy isn't simply reading and writing words, so they need to learn this early. Reading and writing words will open doors that will otherwise stay closed. In our digital world, it's more important than ever to be able to differentiate between fact and opinion, essential and non-essential, researching and defending opinions, etc. We can now access information without much effort, but students need to understand the process and the skills involved in finding the information. All of this is done through literacy, and should somehow be part of the motivating process.

After reviewing numerous articles on this topic of motivation, I am more frustrated than ever. If researchers are taking the time to seriously investigate this topic, I want to see real results. I want to see something beyond an interest inventory completed by first or second graders in suburban America. I want to see a more authentic cross-section of the American population. I want to hear from the kids who have trouble even getting to school because no one pushes them out the door in the morning. I want to hear from the struggling sixth grader, because suddenly his textbooks are confusing.

I want the researchers to ignite the process in finding solutions. I have yet to come across answers to the problem of motivation, or rather, lack thereof. Nothing I've read has been surprising. Through the formal research, we learn that kids hear that reading is important. The studies also go onto show us that students who struggle in reading don't value reading. My point is: nothing was groundbreaking. In fact, I feel like I could have conducted any one of those same studies in my classroom and received the same lackluster results. I want to be WOW'ed. I want some possible strategies to improve student motivation in the classroom.