Motivation Matters

I wanted to give the loyal readers of this fledgling blog a heads up that Education Week is holding a chat next week that will be particularly interesting for those of us who care deeply about matters related to student motivation.

The chat, to be held on edweek.org on Wednesday, Oct. 4, from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m., Eastern time, will tackle the question: Are today's students overburdened with academic demands or not being pushed hard enough in school? This will spark the kind of discussion that gets at the heart of issues about student motivation.

This chat grows off a story recently published in the Sept. 13, 2006 issue of Education Week titled "Student Pressure Subject of Debate."

I would highly encourage you to SPEAK UP on this topic by submitting a question or comment. You can submit questions or comments in advance of the discussion on our chat page.

Following the chat, I will post my own thoughts here about what might be learned from the discussion.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 4:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Shoot for the Stars. Anything's Possible. The Sky's the Limit. The clichés about dreaming of individual greatness are infinite. But at what point do you need to say to a teenager: Get real, dude, you're a junior in high school and have Cs and Ds and you're still talking about being a doctor when you grow up. Do you really think you are motivated enough to suffer through medical school (that is, if you can find a school that will accept you) and then long hours as an intern?

Believe me, I like dreamers, because I am one. And the higher you set your expectations, the farther you will probably go. But the level of motivation has to match the expectations -- otherwise, teenagers are setting themselves up for disappointment and frustration.

An interesting new study by Florida State University researchers examined this problem and concluded that teen career plans are largely out of sync with reality. FSU Sociology Professor John Reynolds tracked changes in high school seniors' educational and occupational plans between 1976 and 2000. He found that the gap between teenagers' goals and actual achievements grew over the 25-year period.

Are today's teenagers simply out of touch with reality? The researchers suggest that grade inflation might be at least one factor. That makes sense to me. If the high school chemistry teacher is handing out A's to kids who stumble through every lab experiment and do little to truly understand the science, those kids might be superficially motivated to become chemists because they actually believe they are good at it.

Hmmm. That seems a bit troubling for those of us who might one day be purchasing chemicals from those would-be chemists.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 6:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I have witnessed a fascinating development in my household recently. My 11-year-old son is obsessed with learning foreign languages. First it was Spanish. Then German. And then he added Chinese.

At the moment, he hasn't mastered much more than how to count to 10 in Spanish and German. And learning Chinese is still in the pipe-dream phase. But he is motivated. He found a software package he plans to use for Spanish, which he sees as a very practical language because we have a lot of Spanish-speaking people in our community, and some of the kids on his soccer team are bilingual. And recently, on a family trip to Vermont, a girl who had just moved to the U.S. from Germany taught him how to count to 10 in German. He spent the rest of the night counting to 10 in German, over and over. Nearly drove us all crazy.

Why is this important? Well, the honest truth is I have never seen my 11-year-old this motivated to learn anything academic. Of course, this may just be a passing fancy, something that seems cool to him now, but will fizzle out once he sees how difficult it is to learn a language. But maybe not.

Education Week has devoted quite a bit of coverage lately to the nation's growing interest in the teaching of foreign languages, particularly those languages--such as Arabic and Chinese--that would be useful to know for economic, political, and national security reasons.

But what really fascinates me is students' motivation to learn languages. I don't think my son is an anomaly. Other kids seem to have a similar level of motivation to learn languages.

And that raises a question: If they are motivated to learn, why do so many schools around the country (including my school district) wait until middle school before they even start teaching languages? Why not start in elementary school? Why not tap into this motivation to learn sooner?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember those burned-out teachers you had in middle or high school? They'd been teaching for decades and the passion for the profession was all but gone. They rolled into class, looking like they wanted to be anywhere but there. Maybe they were mostly to blame for the state of their minds. Or maybe the system pushed them in that direction. Whatever the reason, you can only imagine what effect such low morale had on their students.

In a recent chat on edweek.org about student motivation, several readers posed that question: Does low teacher morale have an impact on student motivation? "Absolutely," answered Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and one of the Aug. 30 chat guests. "Students need to feel that learning is exciting and that their teacher is completely devoted to helping them develop their intellectual skills. ... How can this take place in a classroom with low teacher morale?"

Researchers, policymakers, superintendents, and principals—especially those in districts struggling to improve student achievement—need to keep this in mind as they hatch their master plans for how to improve their schools.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 5:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As I drive by high schools on my way to work this time of year and see football teams sweating through September workouts, a nagging question always comes to mind: Do today's student athletes work as hard as we did a generation ago? Are they as motivated as we were to get better? Some high school coaches I know say the answer is a definitive no. They believe today's student athletes simply have too many other distractions that draw away from the ability to focus intensely on one goal.

Others, however, see a new generation of student athletes, more sophisticated in their knowledge of sports, and smarter about when to work hard and when to take it easy. That is probably progress, a balance between athletic intelligence and hard work.

Still, I sometimes long for the days when hard work was the rule in high school sports.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 5:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome to Motivation Matters, a new blog sponsored by edweek.org.

The concept of motivation has been a topic that has fascinated me for years, beginning in high school in the late 70s and early 80s, when I was in daily awe of my valedictorian older brother, who spent hours in his bedroom mastering chemistry and physics while I rode the "rising tide of mediocrity" (Nation at Risk lingo) into the TV room or down the street to a friend's house to put off until tomorrow the academic work I really should have done yesterday.

But all that changed about halfway through my checkered college career. Riding the rising tide of mediocrity had become downright depressing. I began spending more time in the library and less in the downtown bars, I found intellectual pursuits more satisfying than ever, and I had the fortunate experience of having some excellent professors who motivated me. But most of all, my attitude adjustment occured because of fear—the fear of limited opportunity.

My fascination with the issue of student motivation is matched by educators' interest in it. (See "Student Motivation: What Works, What Doesn't.") That's why I wanted to start to this blog. Over the years, in my conversations with educators when I was interviewing them for stories or simply just talking informally, the issue of student motivation emerged no matter what we were discussing. Most educators seem frustrated by the pervasive attitude that "just getting by" is good enough, but inspired by those kids who push themselves hard and seem to have a thirst for all things intellectual. Teachers and administrators are searching for ideas and tactics for improving student motivation, and I hope this blog serves as an entertaining and useful tool for them to achieve that goal.

So let's get this blog going with some important questions to ponder: What motivates the students in your schools? Why do students work hard for one teacher, but just skate by with another? What tactics work best to get them fully engaged in their classes? Is it a balancing act between encouraging young people, but also making them feel a little afraid of the consequences if they don't work hard?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)