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Don't forget to register for Smithsonian Teachers' Night
October 23!
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Find new classroom-ready resources, meet Smithsonian educators, and
attend demonstrations of school programs and materials at the
Smithsonian's annual education expo. Be among the first three thousand
educators to enter the event and receive a free tote bag.
Register Online.
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INSPIRED TEACHER BLOG
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(This is a reprint of an editorial Aleta Margolis wrote in
2004)
I just finished doing the dishes and I am rewarding myself with 2 cookies. It
changed my whole outlook on cleaning the kitchen...I worked quickly, and even
smiled as I envisioned myself sitting at a freshly cleaned kitchen table with
two chocolate chip cookies and a big glass of milk.
Doing dishes is drudgery, a necessary evil, a means to an end. It's something
you just jump into, rubber gloves and all, and get it over with. There's little
inherent enjoyment. So it's nice to know there's a cookie (or 2!) waiting when
it's over.
School's the same way. You get through the homework, the worksheets, the
textbook, the chapter test, and-more likely than not-a sticker, piece of candy,
or even some cash meets you at the other end. And what's wrong with that? You
work hard, you get a little appreciation from the teacher.
Except for the whole drudgery thing...
READ MORE!
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BECOME A FAN OF INSPIRED TEACHING
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Check out our Facebook page and become a fan of the organization.
Inspired Teaching is now on Twitter as InspireTeach. Follow us to get regular updates! These are new ways you can stay connected to Inspired Teaching and, even better, a way we can stay connected to you!
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Where does motivation come from?
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 Now that the first energetic days of school are gone, teachers are starting to chant the familiar refrain: "My kids aren't motivated to do anything."
At Inspired Teaching, the first question we ask when we hear this statement is "what are you asking them to do?" Teachers are usually doing clearly important things:
- They're teaching students to read.
- They're balancing equations.
- They're studying Native American cultures of the Mid Atlantic region.
But they say their kids aren't "motivated to learn" any of it.
If you ask why, the most frequent response sounds something like this: "Kids these days are lazy. If something is hard to learn they don't want to do the work to learn it." Hence the reliance on punishment and reward systems to push or pull students into "at least learning something." But there's lots of research out there that shows such extrinsic motivators only get you so far. After all, if candy bars were all we needed to solve the motivation problem, there would be a candy bar-line in every school budget.
Well, according to Daniel Pink, the latest studies suggest that the key to progress lies in intrinsic motivation, which he defines as, "the desire to do things because they matter, because we like it, because they're interesting, because they are part of something important." On any given day is that how we'd describe the learning experience in our classrooms?
In a video of his speech at the TEDGlobal 2009 conference, Pink makes the argument that the management framework in successful businesses of the future will address three elements that are at the core of intrinsic motivation:
- Autonomy - the urge to direct our own lives
- Mastery - the desire to get better and better at something that matters
- Purpose - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves
This is an interesting concept to apply to the classroom and a potentially useful framework for analyzing the apparent "lack of motivation" of our students. Think of these same "lazy" students when asking:
- Am I giving my students ownership over their learning experience? (Autonomy)
- Are the things they're learning, things that matter? Does my teaching enable students to see their own growth? (Mastery)
- Do I connect the learning in my classroom to my students' lives? (Purpose)
Where might asking such questions take us in the design of our instruction, the way we think about our students, and the way we think about our own motivation as educators?
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Motivation and Needs
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 In order for children to get to a place where they want to learn for learning's sake, their basic needs have to be met. Think about the last time you tried to accomplish anything substantial when you were excessively tired or hungry. Think of how hard it is to focus on the task at hand when you've had a disagreement with a friend or family member. These are mild distractions compared to the realities in many of our students' lives.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs was created as a tool for understanding performance in the workplace but it is also a useful tool for looking at the various factors that can get in the way of a student achieving "self actualization" in your classroom. When a student appears "lazy", take some time to see if there is a need that isn't being filled behind that behavior. For your reference, check out this graphic of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (PDF).
While you can't be expected to take care of all the needs your students may have outside of school, you can control what happens within your classroom. Though it takes a lot of time and energy, you can create a learning environment in which basic and belonging needs are met. Once you've done that (within the safety of your room at least) your students are free to realize their full potential.
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Center for Inspired Teaching is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that exists to ensure schools make the most of children's innate desire to learn. We do this by investing in teachers. Please visit our website to learn more about our philosophy, programs, and results.
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Here are some interesting articles about the research behind motivation and education - with a particular emphasis on building intrinsic motivation. 