Listen to thisThe authors, co-creators of the acclaimed Discipline with Dignity program, remind us of seven keys to motivating hard-to-reach students and provide practical applications of each.
Students who are hard to motivate are often hard to discipline. Although it can be difficult to assess which is the cause of which, the connection is clear. And the problem is growing. Our seminars are increasingly attended by educators who question what to do with students who are not prepared, will not work, and do not care. Those who are both hard to motivate and to control often make us wonder why we should bother with them at all when there are so many others who do care and do want to learn. They can even make us question the worth of reaching out to them at all, when they so often sap our own motivation. ln addition, they push our buttons, make us feel defeated, interfere with other students, challenge our authority, and evoke strong emotions that interfere with reason. Unless we are careful, they burn us out.
In actual practice, many students who behave in these ways or give up are covering their own concerns about failure. They are protecting themselves from the embarrassment of looking dumb in the eyes of their classmates, parents, and selves. Other students find power and control in their refusals to work. They are competent and capable, but their need to be in control is so strong that they employ a self-defeating strategy to exert their independence. Whether for competence or autonomy, lack of motivation is a protective mechanism that must be respectfully challenged in order to assist students in making better choices.
Our professional responsibility requires that we teach all students and make our best effort to excite even those who seem not to care. If we give up on them, they will cause more problems and be more hurtful, more dangerous, and more costly. Although the answers are not simple, there are many things that educators can do to reawaken motivation in students who have lost interest and perhaps hope. We have found the following seven approaches to be key in meeting this difficult challenge.
1. Create hope
Perhaps the most common cause of poor motivation is hopelessness. Students who simply do not believe they can master the curriculum or that mastery will improve their lives are the least motivated and most likely to become behavior problems. In truth, children and teenagers learn to be unmotivated. All healthy infants are born inquisitive, curious, and “motivated.” Those who remain healthy grow to be toddlers who are so “motivated” that their parents have to rearrange their homes by erecting gates and blocking steps. Like flowers that can be nourished to bloom or that wilt through neglect, our interests are determined by a blend of natural talents and proclivities nurtured by others. This dynamic of nurture is at the foundation of all effective interventions, both conventional and unconventional, that build motivation through building hope.
2. Find new ways to show how achievement benefits life
In the past, many children were motivated by the expectation that if they got a good education, they would get a good job, make money, and have a good life. Today, too many kids do not buy this, and with good reason — good things that should happen don’t always. However, the reality remains that on balance, college grads do better than high school grads, who do better than dropouts. Therefore, we need to find new ways to use data like these as a tool. In addition, we need to take special care that students who are not obedience-oriented and who do not necessarily trust those in authority can see some connection between what we teach them and how it relates to their lives. They need to see how explorers like Balboa are relevant today and how solving an equation may relate to the car they drive or the basketball shot they choose to take. Finally, when students observe and experience people they can relate to doing things in their lives that use the information presented, the connection between achievement and life benefits can often become most real. Effective mentoring programs that bring successful adults into schools and bring students into mentors’ workplaces often have this effect.The problem with many of these conventional motivational methods is that they frame time differently than young people do. High school students may see the future as the next month, middle school students as two weeks, and elementary students as three days. Teachers who can find benefits for their students within these time frames can increase motivation. However, finding benefits depends on knowing the students and their true aspirations — not only the obvious ones such as having good careers or making money. Benefits need to fit in with their lifestyles and environment — not conceding to them, but expanding from the base of their reality.
3. Create interesting challenges that can be mastered
Finding the right level of challenge is one of the most important tools we have to reach students. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) has demonstrated that when the level of challenge is too low, motivation is lost. Climbing a staircase does not come close to the excitement and challenge of climbing a mountain. Tasks that are too easy are not motivating. And if a student fails at an obviously easy task, the results are significantly more harmful to his or her self-esteem. On the other hand, when tasks are too difficult, students give up. Mountains must be created that students believe they can climb. This means that each classroom and subject must be a mountain range with peaks of different heights to ensure a match between the peak and the aptitude of the climber. When challenge matches ability, the conditions are right for students to participate enthusiastically.
In our seminars, we will often challenge participants to find a partner and together count the number of “e”s on a U.S. penny. We give them one minute to complete the exercise. At least 95% do the task, and when we call time, several continue beyond the time allotted. We remind them that they are actually “cheating” when they keep going after we have told them to stop. Naturally, most participants are interested in the official answer, so when we tell them that we do not know the answer because we have never done the task (we wouldn’t want to waste our time on a meaningless activity that doesn’t benefit life), many groan as if realizing they have been “had.” While there is a certain satisfaction for us in this harmless fun, the main point made is that we “motivated” a very large group of intelligent, well-educated professionals to do this “meaningless” activity by giving them an usual task that could be successfully achieved in a reasonable period of time. Educators can often inspire motivation in a similar way by varying the type of instruction while providing tasks with identifiable outcomes that can be achieved within a reasonable time frame.
4. Focus on the learning process
When information is shared in brainfriendly ways, more learning occurs (Sylwester, 1995; Caine & Caine, 1997). Teaching processes that affect motivation can be guided by our understanding of “multiple intelligences” (Gardner, 1993; Armstrong, 1994), “learning styles” (Dunne & Dunne, 1982), and “preferred learning activities” (Goodlad, 1984). In addition, we strongly advise teachers to be ongoing researchers themselves with their students in some easy to implement ways, such as periodic surveys. For example, students can be asked the following:
It can also be helpful to keep a suggestion box in the classroom where students can contribute their ideas and thoughts about how the class can be even more fun for them. Let students know that you will attempt to include their ideas and that you may be consulting with them from time to time about their suggestions.
5. Establish and deepen relationships
Much of what we have advocated for years in our books and articles has essentially been about preventing discipline problems by deepening our relationships with students and finding ways of preserving relationships when we need to intervene. Motivation is no different.
There are simply times when learning is not fun, cannot appeal to an understanding of how it will benefit someone’s life, and will not be geared to an individual’s preferred learning style or intelligence. For example, remembering multiplication tables can be a painful and unstimulating yet necessary exercise for many students. As another example, when my son was an AP physics student and being challenged by the material, he was actually reassured to hear his teacher advise him and others that they could not yet possibly expect to understand what they were doing because they were still “learning the language” of physics. It would begin to make sense later on.
In these situations, we inspire motivation because of the work we have previously done to establish trust with our students. We make deposits into the “reservoir of good will” so that we can make withdrawals when needed. There are times that we must rely on our good relationship (“do it because I’m telling you it is important”) to elicit a student’s optimal effort.
6. Offer real choices
Some competent and capable students simply refuse to work as a way of establishing power and control. Because of these dynamics, it can be highly motivating to actually give the power to learn directly to the student. The more say the student has in selecting subject matter, the method of learning it, and the way competence is demonstrated (e.g., test, portfolio, project), the less need he or she may have to demonstrate power in negative, self-defeating ways.
The simplest way to let students achieve ownership of learning is to offer them significant choices: “Answer three out of these six questions” or “By the end of the day, your work needs to be completed. Would it be best for you to do it now, during recess, or during another time today that I haven’t thought of?’ Choices can be included in most assignments, projects, papers, and tests. Choices can also be given in developing rules, selecting consequences, and defining class procedures, responsibilities, and rituals.
In addition, students who demonstrate their power by refusing to work need to know that their presence is more important than their behavior, even if their behavior has consequences. For example, a teacher might say, “Bill, I know I hassle you a lot about not doing your work, and I’ll probably keep doing that because I respect you too much to expect anything less than your best. Most students who won’t work are either afraid of failing or are needing to feel in charge. I hope that as you get to know me and this class, you’ll feel brave enough to take a chance. Either way, keep coming and keep learning.” If necessary, a consequence can follow.
7. When necessary, use short-term gain
Behavior modification programs rely on short-term gain to change behavior. Stickers, stars, charts, auctions, pizza parties, and extra privileges have become standard methods of motivation in most classrooms. Although these approaches may appear to change behavior fast, the change does not last. In fact, there can be serious negative side effects to these kinds of behavior modification programs that should make us limit their use far more than we do. These include possible adverse effects on internal motivation — "what’s in it for me" games can lead to bribery and replacing mastery with the expectation of tangible gain.
However, there are times when rapid change is the goal. Hurtful or chaotic behaviors need to be changed quickly in order to ensure safety and success. A child who hits others may benefit from a formal behavior modification system that motivates him to stop hitting by helping him realize that he has the power to control himself in the presence of desired incentives. And it is better to offer external incentives to jump-start and sustain a child’s interest in reading than to allow that child to fall far behind his or her peers. However, since all behavior programs that rely on external reinforcement have limited results at best, use them only to change behavior quickly, then tum to more responsibility-based methods to sustain the gain. Just as a paycheck (external reinforcement) is required (we would not work without one) but insufficient, we are likely to face burnout if it becomes or remains our sole incentive to work.
Make It Hard to Give Up
While there may be unpleasant consequences due to their behavior, poorly motivated students need us to affirm our belief that they are more important than what they do. As educators, we must make it as hard as we possibly can for students to choose poor behavior and a give-up mentality. They need to know that we want them unprepared, unenthusiastic, or tardy more than not at all. Only in a caring environment that includes but de-emphasizes limits and consequences are they likely to reconsider the value and importance of successful learning.
References
Armstrong. T. (1994) Multiple intelligences in the classroom. Alexandria. VA: ASCD. Caine, R., & Caine, G. (1997). Education on the edge of possibility. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Dunne. R., & Dunne, K. (1982). Teaching students through their individual learning styles. Reston, VA: Reston Publishing Co.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple intelligences: The theory in practice. New York: Basic Books.
Goodlad. J. I. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill.
Sylwester, R. (1995). A celebration of neurons: An educator’s guide to the human brain. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
From: Reaching Today’s Youth, Vol. 3, Issue 3, pp.13-15
