Student Motivation: Start With You

In Motivating Students to Learn, a book that I am reading during my final stretches through Graduate school, there lies this quotation: “You can become your own most valuable motivational tool by building close relationships with students and establishing yourself as a supportive and helpful resource person” (Wentzel and Brophy 127).

And, sure, this is the first thing they teach you in teacher school: RELATIONSHIPS MATTER.

Well, at least that was one of the first things I learned as a student becoming a teacher.

As I have been reflecting on my teaching—as one SHOULD do and as graduate school forces you to do—there is one student in my mind that, recently, proves this more than I think I could ever try to prove on my own.

And it’s through writing. I mean, of course it is.

Picture an apathetic student.

If you don’t already have one, congratulations, you are a teaching enigma.

For everyone else, this is my apathetic student: a disconnected home life, the need for attention in some form or another, class clown, doesn’t care about getting in trouble, has a good heart, tired all the time, failed 6 of 8 classes first semester of 7th grade, constantly in and out of detention. Yours in mind is probably similar. Or worse. Probably worse. School is hard.

I worked very closely with this student: he’s in my special 8-student study hall, he comes in for extra help during my intervention hours, he spends two hours in my Language Arts classroom first thing in the morning, he comes in on days off to work on homework.

I’m always on his back for getting work done. I know he can do better. I encourage him. I laugh at his jokes. I support him in work. I give him food when he needs it. When he’s tired, he sleeps on my couch. When he needs help with homework, I offer my help. When he’s in ISS (In-School Suspension), I go work with him and pull him out so he doesn’t have to spend all day in a box. I check-in with him every chance I get:

“You doing okay?”

“Do you need something from me?”

“What can I do for you?”

I’d be hard-pressed to find a kid this year I put more energy in.

I only say this because it is essential for the point I am making: relationships matter. What I am about to share doesn’t happen without everything I just listed. And I am truly beginning to notice how true that is.

In teaching school, another thing they tell you on the first day—specifically in regards to teaching and motivating students—is that students perform better when they have choice in their education. It’s in every teaching book, every methods course, every teaching blog: CHOICES matter.

I take that to heart.

Here’s how writing in my class works.

Every student has an individually-designed writing journal. I don’t look at it. I keep it in my room. I don’t tell them what to write. It’s their notebook. It’s their writing. It’s their space to figure out their thoughts.

And that’s exactly what I tell them.

When we write in class, I give them a prompt, of course—for those who need it or want it or need some inspiration that day. If the prompt means nothing to them, I ask them to write about whatever they want. I give them two sentence stems we have practiced—two fool-proof sentence stems: “I remember…” and “Today I…”

Everyone remembers something.

Everyone feels something today.

We practice with those individually, of course, early in the year, but I let them be crutches to fall back on when inspiration doesn’t hit. It’s a starting point. Who knows what it turns into.

I give them ten minutes to write.

It’s mostly quiet.

I go sit next to my apathetic student one day.

I ask him to start writing.

He shrugs a little.

“Well, I want to write, so I am going to sit here and write. But, I can’t write when it’s loud. I need to focus.” I say with a smile. “What should I write about?” He shrugs again. “I’ll write about you. That’s what I’m thinking about right now.”

So I begin: “Today I am hoping that you will work because I know you can. But you probably won’t. For some reason. It’s okay. I won’t hold it against you. You’re still a good kid. And you make me laugh.”

He picks up his pencil; his table mates have quieted, too—getting into their writing.

He writes.

“Wanna read it?”

Today I found out that my brother is moving 600 miles away and I’m sad.

At the beginning of the semester, in another writing activity, we wrote “I remember…” and “I hope…” statements to reflect upon the previous and look forward towards the new ones. We also made paper puppets to help illustrate our reflections, but that’s beside the point.

As a teacher—striving always to create these strong relationships with students, no matter the cost to my time, energy, mental stability, etc. (You can yell at me for shirking my self-care later, but at least I’m doing what it takes to try to be a good teacher…Right?)—I created individual “I remember…” and “I hope…” cards for them. I made them on a PowerPoint, printed off handouts, cut them out, and laminated them.

For my apathetic student of choice, I wrote:

“I remember, over every funny and serious conversation we’ve had about how much I want to help you, when I told you that you wouldn’t pass my class even after all that tremendous work you did toward the end of the semester.”

And:

“I hope that you still make me laugh, that I won’t be as mad at you all the time, and that I don’t have to tell you about you failing your classes.”

He didn’t do anything in my class—in any class—last semester.

This semester, he wrote.

He wrote about his brother.

And I was able to help him from that. We talked. He wrote a little more. He came in later to work on stuff. He trusted me. And, he trusted me before he wrote that.

But, now I know he trusts me.

I’d like to think that something I have done for him—in some way—lead to him writing that down that day. That writing isn’t something that just happens.

It takes time.

It takes a relationship.

I hadn’t noticed it until later that day, but whenever he comes near to my room he gets a big smile on his face.

“Why do you always smile when you are coming into my room, man?”

“I don’t know, Kascak. I love being in your room.”

And, well, love doesn’t seem to be an apathetic emotion.

I could be wrong, though. I’ve been wrong before.