Motivation Matters

Here at edweek.org, we've got a lot of really fantastic blogs that run the gamut of education topics, and catching up with them over the past few days, I ran into a couple of posts that are particularly relevant to those interested in student motivation.

Over at Bridging Differences, Deborah Meier talks about what happens when students "play the school game,"—i.e. when getting good grades begins to become more important than actually taking and pursuing classes that they're actually interested in.

Meanwhile, as one of my grandsons reminded me, high school and college alike are “means” for getting credits that can be turned into diplomas that can be turned into one’s improved job chances. The “school game” is set up to explore youth’s ingenuity at how to accomplish this task with the least energy and the least risk-taking—and the most money!

On her New Terrain blog, Jessica Shyu, who is now a program director for Teach For America in Washington, talks about how for at least one student, Washington's cash incentive program for students is working. She is quick to note, though, that it wasn't the incentive program alone. Another strong factor in this student's academic turnaround was "a really amazing teacher who teaches standards-aligned material that is rigorous, based in literature, and uses effective guided notes and assessment practices."

Jessica also links to an interview with Roland Fryer, the creator of incentive programs in NYC, Washington, and Chicago, on The Colbert Report, which I have to admit was much different from the interview I did with him a few months back.

My last announcement is somewhat of a technical one. It seems that our RSS feed, which has been on the fritz for awhile, has been repaired. If you already have a reader, subscribe to Motivation Matters' feed by clicking on the orange icon to the right that says "Get RSS" and follow the instructions from there. If you don't use an RSS reader to keep track of all your blogs, you might want to check one out. I started using one a few years ago, and I don't know how I managed before. Check out this short, but helpful video, to get started.

Posted by Katie Ash at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This AP article about a survey on American students' ethics paints a grim picture of what kids think is right and wrong.

According to the survey, 35 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls admitted to stealing merchandise from a store within the past year, up from 32 percent of boys and 23 percent of girls in 2006. Sixty-four percent of students admitted to cheating on a test within the past year, and 36 percent said they had used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment for school within the past year, says the survey, which gathered responses from almost 30,000 public and private high school students.

In light of the other findings, perhaps most troublesome was the finding that 77 percent of students believed that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know."

The AP article cites increased academic pressure and greater access to ways to cheat as two reasons why cheating rates are rising.

The article and survey reminded me of a story I just read on edweek.org about technology's role in student ethics. In the video embedded in that article, Howard Gardner, a psychologist with the Harvard Graduate School of Education says, "we began to look at the sense of ethics of young Americans, and we found that they all knew what it meant to be ethical, and some of them were and some of them admired ethics, but many young Americans feel that ethics is a luxury. It's something that they can afford to do when they're wealthy and successful and famous, but in the meantime they want to pass."

The two articles dovetail nicely, and both project a troubling picture of the ethics of this upcoming generation.

What do you think? Are students today less honest than students five or ten years ago? Or are students just more likely to admit it? What might be contributing to the increase in students who admit to dishonest behavior? What might be done to curb that dishonest behavior?

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's an AP article about a charter school in Arizona that is successfully teaching preschoolers Chinese, kindergartners division, and middle schoolers college algebra.

It's a small program—only 17 students take the full regimen of classes—but it's open to students regardless of income, gender, or ethnicity and is based on the idea that all students can perform at gifted levels if they are given the right curriculum and guidance, says the article.

Here's a little about how the school operates:

Students address teachers by their first names.

There's also a wide range of ages and grade levels in any given class. School officials don't believe that students grow at a homogenous pace, so they're generally grouped instead by academic and social characteristics. In this year's crop of AP calculus students, for example, there are three seventh-graders, four freshmen and three sophomores.

While the atmosphere is congenial, there are no organized competitive athletic programs and school policies are strict. Officials demand near-perfect attendance, on-time behavior, zero profanity and homework five nights a week.

This is an interesting follow-up to my colleague Christina Samuel's story about the dynamic nature of giftedness, which talks about how psychologists and educators are now rejecting the idea that giftedness is a static, innate quality that students either have or don't have.

It sounds like this school in Arizona treats all students like they are gifted, and while I'm sure some students might not thrive in the stressful, academically rigorous atmosphere, it sounds like many of them—who otherwise would not be given the opportunity to do so—are.

What do you think? Is giftedness something that can change? Does that label fluctuate depending on how students are taught and what they are exposed to in school?

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This article in the New York Times debates the pros and cons of 8th-grade graduation ceremonies. In recent years, that benchmark has become more extravagant, says the article, which could send the wrong message to students by treating middle school graduation as an accomplishment and not an expectation. A blowout 8th-grade graduation could take away from the experience of high school graduation and make students think that finishing middle school is a sufficient level of education, some educators contend. But graduating from middle school is an accomplishment for some kids, opponents say, and recognizing that can be a strong motivator for some students.

Like most things, I have a feeling that the solution probably lies on some middle ground. I think it's important to recognize students' accomplishments and congratulate them on milestones that they've reached--and graduating from middle school definitely qualifies--but maybe graduation dinners and dances akin to prom might be going overboard. However, I don't really think that a big middle school graduation ceremony is going to make or break a student's educational trajectory, either.

What do you think? How is 8th-grade graduation celebrated in your districtl?

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

This past Sunday, I had dinner with a friend of mine I hadn't seen in quite awhile. We used to hang out every couple of weeks or so, but lately it's been more like every few months. The reason can be described in two words: law school. Luckily, he was able to squeeze me in right at the end of his spring break--which he spent writing papers and working on homework--because otherwise, I don't think I would have seen him at all this semester. After all, finals are coming up... in May. "It's time to start studying," he told me. His classmates have been talking about it for a couple of weeks already, he said, much to my amazement. "Finals is a season, kind of like Christmas," he said. "It starts way too early, and it's extremely stressful."

According to this AP story, he's not alone in feeling that way. Four in ten college students say they "endure stress often," says a survey conducted for AP and mtvU. Almost one in five say they "feel it all or most of the time." Students report feeling lonely, depressed, anxious, and some express a desire to use alcohol or drugs to relax. Many feel guilty for any time not spent studying. The good news is the vast majority of students, even though they are stressed, feel pretty happy with their lives in general.

While this survey focused on students in higher education, I think its implications extend to students in the K-12 environment as well. Stress is definitely still a factor in lower grades, and it can have major effects on student motivation. On one hand, too much stress can completely paralyze and overwhelm students, resulting in feelings of frustration and depression, but a healthy amount of stress can also motivate students to work diligently and keep up with assignments. It's a delicate balance I think few students are able to master.

What do you think? Are students able to handle stress effectively, or are they completely overwhelmed? How much stress is too much, and what kind of effect does that have on student motivation?

Posted by Katie Ash at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

A couple of months ago, we had quite a debate going on this blog about the importance of homework--how much should be given, whether it's effective, and how much strain it puts on families. So when I saw this story ("Survey on Homework Reveals Acceptance, Despite Some Gripes") on edweek.org this morning, I immediately thought of the readers of this blog.

Debra Viadero's article says that 85 percent of American parents believe their kids are doing "the right amount" or "too little" homework. Seventy-five percent of students say they have adequate time to complete their homework. Overall, students, parents, and teachers overwhelmingly support giving homework.

There are a lot of tidbits of information in Debbie's article that are worth reading about. Like the fact that a quarter of students feel that their homework assignments are mostly busywork, down from three-quarters of students who felt that way six years ago. And the students who thought giving homework is a bad idea were generally students who were struggling academically.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions, and it's important to note that the survey doesn't focus on whether or not homework is effective, but rather on whether people think it's effective. Still, it's an interesting follow-up to the debate going on here awhile ago, and it certainly sheds some light on how homework is perceived as a whole.

Posted by Katie Ash at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This AP story details an innovative, and effective, program to get students to finish their homework. At Glenpool Middle School, teachers don't give out zeros for incomplete homework assignments. Instead, they send the students to a lunch study hall, where they are expected to complete the originally assigned work. If the work still isn't completed by the end of the lunch period, their parents are contacted to make arrangements for the student to finish the assignment before or after school hours.

I think this is a really good idea for a number of reasons. First of all, zeros pull down a student's average in a frighteningly quick and devastating way. Even if the student had all A's on every other assignment, one zero could conceivably bring his or her overall grade down to a C, or worse. Second of all, if students don't do their homework assignments and take a zero instead, they still have not learned whatever the assignment was designed to teach. This program tackles both of those problems by making it very difficult for students to receive zeros on homework assignments and making them do the work whether or not it's completed on time. Also, I imagine that losing out on lunch is extra motivation for students to finish their homework at home.

What do you think? Is forcing kids to finish incomplete homework assignments during lunch a good idea, or does it eliminate the consequences of not getting it done, and let them off too easy?

Posted by Katie Ash at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

This week's poll on the Education Week homepage may be of particular interest to the readers of this blog. It asks the question, "Do U.S. students spend enough time and effort on academics in high school?" So far, out of 179 total responses, the overwhelming answer is no. Twenty-six voters (14 percent) said yes, while 153 voters (85 percent) said no.

This is by no means a scientifically sound survey, and there are still four days to go before the voting officially ends, but I doubt the end result will change significantly. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this, though, to see how it turns out.

Posted by Katie Ash at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

My colleague Andrew Trotter has written a story about a documentary called 2 Million Minutes that compares 6 high school students from three different countries--India, China, and the United States. As you might imagine, the documentary examines the steadfast dedication of the Indian and Chinese students in contrast to the relaxed attitude of the American students. It's worth noting that all of the students the documentary follows are bright students who are at the top of their class.

According to the story, both the Indian and Chinese students emphasize their long-term career and education goals when talking about their education, while the American students "seem unfocused and unconcerned about their future prospects." The story also notes that the American students seem to have less parental involvement than the Indian and Chinese students.

The economic benefits of being highly educated and having a "safe" career seem to be major motivators for the students in India and China, but not for the Americans.

Watch the trailer:

Posted by Katie Ash at 1:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

I woke up Sunday morning looking forward to a getting a jump on packing some Christmas gifts and watching my highly motivated New England Patriots continue their march toward an undefeated season.

But then my middle school son nearly made me choke on my coffee when he showed me the progress he had made toward completing his science project about animal and plant cells, an assignment he had mentioned in passing the day before. What little progress he had made! And how worried I looked!

Reading over the assignment, I realized he had a 10-15 hour work session ahead of him if he wanted to get it done. And that meant I had a 10-15 hour oversight session ahead of me in which I would have to push, prod, instruct, and encourage like a Marine-Corps boot camp instructor if there was any hope of completing this project.

After five hours of work (with a few short breaks), it was 3 p.m. and he was still a little shy of being halfway done. When I rejected his request to take another break and ordered him to "finish task 6 first," he pleaded, "Dad, if I don't take a break, I think I'm going to have a seizure!"

He was joking, of course. So I ignored his plea and he pushed ahead.

At some point, I can't remember the time of the evening, I concluded that if I did not step in and offer more help, this project would still be underway when the rest of the family was eating their Monday breakfast. So I stepped in, first offering to type for him while he dictated to me because he is one of the world's slowest typists.

Then I began helping him figure out how to draw various cell configurations. This is where the line between helping and doing becomes quite blurry. How much help is too much? I found myself wondering whether I was doing a little too much, depriving him of the opportunity to learn the important lessons of what happens to procrastinators. Needless to say, the exchanges between us became more testy as the clock ticked closer to 10 p.m.

But, finally, he (we) finished. He went to bed. And I got one of the worst bouts of insomnia I've had in years, because terms like mitochondria, nucleolus, nucleus, cell membrane, and a bunch of other biological words and images kept swimming around in my head along with the recurring question: Why the heck didn't he tell me about this project a week ago? And if I helped him too much, did he learn the concepts he was supposed to learn? Or was this just 12 hours of pointless pain and agony?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 1:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

An interesting conversation is evolving around Katie's Dec. 11 post about the value of homework. The parents who commented seem to think there is too much of it and most of it is just busy work that won't necessarily help students become better learners.

I must say I stand smack in the middle of this debate. As the father of four children--ages 4, 10, 13, and 15--there are some nights, especially when I am maxed out doing a million tasks, that a child's plea for help on homework irritates me. Why does the school assign so much homework? Why can't my kid understand the concepts better? What's wrong with the teacher?

But on other nights, I genuinely enjoy helping my kids with homework, especially if it involves writing assignments or math problems. Helping them reach a new level of articulation on an essay or to solve a math problem is actually fun and rewarding. I do not see it as "busy work." Rather, I see it as reinforcing what they learn during the day, much like athletes practice skills on their own, outside of regular practices or games.

Homework also teaches skills that are important later in life, such as organization and time management. I have seen one of my kids go from someone who was completely disorganized and managed his time very poorly to now doing a solid, if not perfect, job of knowing what homework he has and when it is due and then figuring how much time it will take to complete it. And homework assignments have helped him get to that point.

But like most things in life, the key is balance. Teachers should not stop assigning homework simply because most students (and many parents) don't like it. But they should also not assign an overwhelming amount of it.

And, frankly, at this time of the year, when kids are looking forward to spending time with their friends on their winter breaks and families have a lot going on, teachers should use some common sense and lighten up a bit on the homework. At least that's one father's opinion.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Having been out of school for about a year and a half now, I have to admit that one of the things I enjoy most about the working world is that when I go home, I don't have any homework. When I turn off my computer and put on my coat, that is officially the end of my working day, and I'm not required to think about it anymore. It is a luxury I always envied when I was a student.

But then again, as I've mentioned many times before, I did a lot of homework when I was in school, and I truly believe that those hours of reading, writing, and studying contributed to a much higher and more comprehensive understanding of what I was learning in class.

So I was pretty torn when I read this column in the Los Angeles Times. It links homework to childhood obesity and depression, decreased motivation, and even strained family relationships. While I identify with the author's plea for a "Christmas miracle"--no homework over break--another part of me agrees with the eloquent sentiments of eighth-grade student Maggie Moreton: "GET OVER IT LADY."

Maybe the question to be asked here is why aren't kids motivated to do their homework? What makes them so opposed to it that homework, in some cases, is causing fights within their households? Is it a lack of responsibility? Are there just plenty of other things kids would rather be doing? Or is it something else entirely?

My parents never had to bug me to hit the books, and I think, in large part, it had to do with a very clear understanding of what a zero on an assignment could do to my overall average. As my teachers never failed to point out, a missed assignment could send my grade plummeting from an A to a C, or worse. That alone was enough to motivate me.

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, I read an essay published in the Hoover Digest, written by Diane Ravitch. In the essay, Ravitch, whose well-defined ideas on education you can find on her Bridging Differences blog, says that we are quick to blame teachers for low international test scores and poorly performing schools, but we rarely point to the students and their "slacker" attitude towards school when thinking about reform. It's really an excellent essay, and I highly recommend that you read the whole thing, but here's an excerpt just for reference's sake:

Next time there is a conference about the state of American education--or the problems found in each and every school district--why don't we take a hard look at why so many of our students are slackers? Why don't we look at the popular culture and its effects on students' readiness to apply themselves to learning? Why don't we appraise the role models of "success" who surround our children in the press? Why don't we ask how often our children see models of success who are doctors, nurses, educators, scientists, engineers, and others who enable our society to function and who contribute to our common good?

The idea that an overarching anti-intellectual societal attitude has something to do with why kids aren't motivated to do well in school also came up in this post about a dip in the number of students reading for pleasure. One reason kids may be reading less, suggested one commenter, is because there's no cultural validation for reading books. Ravitch takes it a step further by implying that not only is there no cultural incentive to read books, but there's no societal validation for studying in general.

I'm no sociologist, but it seems to me that Ravitch is on to something. In American media, who is glorified more often: Movie stars or engineers? Pro-sports players or brain surgeons?

I don't think you can point to any one entity as an explanation for such a complicated issue, but I can't help but wonder: How do those kinds of role models affect the way our kids learn and how hard they're willing to study? Is society at least partly to blame for the lack of motivation in our students? And if so, how do we go about changing that? Do other countries have similar problems, or is this specifically an issue in the United States?

Posted by Katie Ash at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Motivation guru Richard Lavoie, the author of The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets for Turning On the Tuned-Out Child, talks to USA Today in this Q&A session about the importance of not branding kids as lazy, the balance between providing support and encouraging challenges, and the wisdom, or lack thereof, of reward systems, competition, and punishment.

It's a good and easy read, so it's worth checking out.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Will Fitzhugh, the founder and president of the Concord Review, a journal of academic writing by high school students, has written a thought-provoking essay, "Absent From Class," for edweek.org that poses the question: Why do so many of our high school students do so little work?

This, of course, is a question educators have been asking for years. But what was especially interesting about Fitzhugh's essay was how he contrasted the high levels of motivation today's high school students show in sports and other extracurricular activities versus the disturbingly low levels of motivation they have for academic work.

"I cannot think of a single high school sport that asks for only three or four hours a week of practice," Fitzhugh writes, citing a study indicating that only half of high school students spend more than 3-4 hours a week on homework. "So little time spent preparing would easily lead to an athletic failure to match the academic failure of so many of our students."

Fitzhugh's contrasting of motivation in sports versus academics raises some important questions and might point educators in the direction of figuring out how to get students more motivated to learn traditional academics.

But as a longtime youth sports coach who is now coaching high school boys in lacrosse, I am not convinced that today's high school athlete is as highly motivated as Fitzhugh suggests. In fact, at times, they seem much less motivated than athletes of a generation ago. Some high school coaches I know have said that this generation simply has too many choices or distractions--and, hence, they have trouble focusing their efforts. Other coaches have seen a sense of entitlement among today's teenagers, an attitude that they should be given special treatment regardless of how hard they work or whether they are willing to make personal sacrifices for the good of the team.

So let the debate begin...What must be done to get today's high school students more motivated? And do high school sports provide a model for figuring out how to motivate today's teenagers to perform better in their classes?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 1:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Japan is known far and wide for maintaining a rigorous and effective public education system. But a significant number of students are less than enamored with it. A new report from the country's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology shows that the number of students refusing to attend school is rising for the first time in five years.

The Japan Times reports in this story that "a record 138,696 elementary and junior high school students were absent from school for at least 30 days without good reason during the school year that ended in March."

That's a minute percentage of the younger students, but about 3 percent of adolescents are abandoning schooling in a country where education is highly valued and viewed as the only road to prosperity.

The report lists a number of reasons absentees gave for staying away, including delinquency, bullying, relationship and mental health issues, and apathy.

Several years ago the government began instituting significant curriculum reforms to address concerns that schools were not preparing students to succeed in an economy that rewards innovation and creativity. I was there on assignment to report on the changes—which included a 30 percent reduction in content, introduction of integrated courses, and elimination of the time-honored tradition of Saturday school. They were prompted, in part, by a floundering economy and concerns that too many students were becoming more stressed and despondent. Surveys at the time had shown that about half of students did not enjoy school or see the purpose in studying hard.

The changes were controversial, and some parents began sending their children to cram schools to ensure they were learning the essentials. But there was also a sense that focusing on developing the whole student would also have its benefits.

Alas, some cities and towns have rolled back those reforms, citing declining test scores and concerns among parents that their children were not being properly prepared for university exams and careers.

I wonder if the reforms—or the move back to the traditional curriculum—had any effect on students' satisfaction or dissatisfaction with school.

Posted by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo, edweek.org at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The transcripts of chats on edweek.org are a treasure-trove of practical tips, well-informed insights, and strong opinions.

So if you missed the last chat, "Tough Choices: Preparing Students for Global Competition," check it out. Our featured guests were former Boston schools superintendent Thomas W. Payzant and Marc S. Tucker of the National Center on Education and the Economy.

This transcript is worth reading because it raises some important questions related to student motivation.

At one point in the discussion, Payzant wonders if our country has the will to improve its education system. He recalls a recent trip to China:

"Last year, I was in China for a week and visited schools. I asked what are the most important subjects - the answer was Chinese, English, Mathematics and Science. And then I was told about the other subjects that were important too, including the arts, physical education, etc. This can not all be done in a six hour day, 175 or 180 day school year. Are we prepared to make the commitment to more time and higher quality?"

And, equally important, how would more time in school affect the level of motivation of students? Would they grow even more bored? Or would the extra time be just what educators need to teach more creatively?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 5:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In a Nov. 10 post about a review of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, I promised that I would read this book. The review was very positive, but I wanted to pass my own judgment.

Well, I can tell you the review was right on target. If you are interested in helping kids see the world through a lens that values hard work and a commitment to improvement, this book is a must read. It includes common sense advice backed up by research, and a host of anecdotes about students, teachers, and parents to illustrate how a person's mindset influences their short-term and long-term performance in school and on the job.

I also found it to be a great resource for sports coaches. In fact, it made me take a hard look at how I coach and what I need to change to bring out the best in my players. There is an excellent section on John Wooden, the most successful college basketball coach of all time. Wooden "admits that in terms of basketball tactics and strategies, he was quite average," Dweck writes. "What he was really good at was analyzing and motivating his players. With these skills he was able to help his players fulfill their potential, not just in basketball, but in life--something he found even more rewarding than winning games."

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is a page with drawings from students in an art class. Most people, including me, see drawing talent as a special ability that you either have or don't have. But the pictures on this page tell a different story. They show the crude drawings of people's faces done before the students took a drawing class. Even I could draw that well. Then they show the revised drawings after they took the class. The transformation in quality is exceptional.

Still, if there is one criticism I have of this book it is that it plays down pure, natural talent too much. To be sure, I believe we can all pick a skill, such as drawing, and learn how to do it better. But the reality is there are people who are born with a special talent for drawing or basketball that puts them way ahead of the rest of us.

Even so, the message in this book is powerful. At the least, it will prompt you to step back a bit and take a hard look at your approach to teaching, coaching, or just living. More likely than not, you will see a need for some adjustments.

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The challenges rookie teachers face are well documented. They have to design lesson plans, master new curricula, and learn to navigate the oftentimes tricky politics of school life.

But for many, the biggest challenge they face is figuring out how to react to student apathy. Do you punish lazy students by giving them more assignments? Do you devote most of your time and energy to the kids who want to be there, the ones who work hard and pay attention? Or do disengaged students deserve as much attention as engaged ones?

A nicely written piece in American Secondary Education, a scholarly journal published by Ashland University in Ohio, answers those and other questions about how new teachers can reach disengaged middle school students. But the lessons in the article could apply to kids at almost any age.

The article, "A Middle School Dilemma: Dealing with 'I Don't Care'," includes some poignant anecdotes from teachers in the trenches struggling with how to motivate the unmotivated . One 8th grade boy, for instance, consistently fails his history tests, but he's polite, shy, and doesn't cause problems in class. His student teacher offered to provide an extra study session for him. He thanked her in advance for making a special effort to help him, but then he didn't show up for the study session.

Sound familiar? There are countless students in schools all across the country just like that boy. They don't cause problems, but they are completely, 100 percent disengaged.

The author of the article, Foster Walsh, an assistant professor in the department of teacher education at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., offers some common sense advice for teachers dealing with these kinds of students, such as using questionnaires to see what students are interested in and what subjects they like or dislike and why. This gives teachers a starting point for discussion, and even the possibility of a little humor.

But maybe the best advice for new teachers is painfully obvious: Don't take what students say to you personally, Walsh recommends. Rather, he writes, try to see "adolescent disengagement and apathy not as a single case of defiance but as a pattern of practiced defense--a complicated problem, requiring a complicated solution."

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 7:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The tale of the hard working immigrant teenager who balances the demands of school with the responsibilities of home has been told so many times that it has become a predictable narrative that many readers look at and say: "I've seen that story before."

Yet I hope readers' familiarity with such storylines does not prevent them from digging a little deeper into what lessons can be learned from hard working immigrant kids that can be used to heighten motivation among typical U.S. students.

Recently, I was reading our local weekly community newspaper, The Old Bridge Observer, a small, understaffed but loveable little paper that frequently runs photos of ribbon cutting ceremonies on its front page and soft features about the good deeds of local schools inside the paper. (The paper is also not on the Web.)

For a story in the Jan. 13 edition of the paper, staff writer Kate Godfrey held a roundtable discussion with 20 eighth graders from Woodbridge Middle School in Prince William County, Va. The 20 students were all immigrants. The message in the article, directed at the typicial U.S. student, was anything but soft.

In very frank comments, the 20 boys and girls told Godfrey that students born in the U.S. need to be more appreciative of all the opportunities that exist here. And they said their U.S.-born peers need to be more motivated to take advantage of those opportunities.

One female student told Godfrey: "I think American parents are too easy on their children. They need to expect more of them."

I agree, because sometimes I need to do just that with my own children.

At the beginning of every youth lacrosse season that I coach, I tell my players they have been given a gift: The opportunity to play and get better at lacrosse. I tell them that many boys, for different reasons, are not given that gift of opportunity. As a result, they must respect that gift.

But the cynical side of me wonders how many of them, because they are so used to having so much, truly realize when opportunities are virtually dropped in their laps.

How do we get this generation to respect the gift of opportunity and then transform it into heightened motivation? How do we prevent a sense of entitlement, so pervasive in today's society, from becoming a motivation killer in school and on athletic fields?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Our recent chat on edweek.org, "Student Academic Pressure: Too Much or Too Little?," prompted hundreds of questions and comments that showcased how differently educators, researchers, policymakers, and parents view this issue. Many think today's students are overburdened with academic work both in school and at home, while many others believe today's students are not held to high standards and have a questionable work ethic.

Whatever their opinion on that question, one theme that resonated within this chat is that the type and quality of teaching and curriculum in U.S. schools needs to be improved. "It's not whether students have too little/too much pressure," said one chat participant, taking issue with the title of the chat. "It's whether the pedagogy is sound and the material developmentally appropriate."

Undoubtedly, many chat participants argued, poor to mediocre teaching combined with poor to mediocre curricula is a recipe for creating unmotivated students who see little value in what they are being taught. And if they see little value in what they are learning, how can you expect them to maintain a strong work ethic in their classes?

The question I have is: What percentage of schools do you think fall into the category of having poor to mediocre teaching and poor to mediocre curricula? And of those that do, what should be done to improve those schools?

Posted by Kevin Bushweller at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

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 | Comments (0) | 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)