Please Stop Talking About Motivation — Chuck Sandy
When we say someone is unmotivated, what we often mean is they are not doing what we think they should be doing. When we say we ourselves our lacking motivation, what we often mean is “I don’t feel like doing anything today” or “I don’t feel very well” or even “I don’t feel like I belong here.” It sounds like depression, doesn’t it?
Openly confessing to being unmotivated is sometimes a small act of personal rebellion and sometimes a call for help. When it’s a call for help, having to listen to someone talk about motivation will just make things worse.
Our students don’t usually use words to describe their inner states. They act them out in ways that can look like a lack of motivation but isn’t. When we see someone doing this, we have to stop and say to ourselves, “No, I am not going to walk over and give a lecture on the importance of being motivated.” Yet, sometimes we do what we have just told ourselves we shouldn’t. Why do we do this?
Often it’s because we mistakenly feel it’s about us. It’s not about us, yet we look at a student acting out and looking openly unmotivated and think, “I am not reaching this student, do not know how to reach this student, and the only thing I can think to do is stop this behaviour because it’s a threat.” Such thoughts occur to all of us. We’re human.
I’ve got a student who worked hard getting me to notice how unmotivated he is. Every time he slouched down or pulled out his mobile or indicated he has no book, pen, or paper, he looked at me to see if this would be the moment I walked over and used the voice of authority on him – the one he’s probably had used on him all his life.
He acted out. I responded in a normal way. He stopped what he was doing, and then started doing something doubly annoying. I ignored that because it wasn’t bothering anyone except me. Instead I commented on something else and walked away. It was a stand off that lasted until one day he could stand it no longer.
As I approached his group to talk to another student, he looked up and said in a loud angry voice “I’ve got a headache, alright?” I was completely taken aback. He glared at me, repeated this line in an angrier voice, and then waited. I confess, I almost said something different from what I did say, but what I did say was, “I’m sorry to hear that. Why don’t you go to my office and take a nap. The door’s open.”
He picked up his bag, turned to me, and said, “I’m not stupid, you know.” I said, “I know that. I didn’t say you are. I said maybe you could use a nap. My office is a great place to take naps.” He stormed off without another word.
An hour later, he came in, sat down, asked someone what we were doing, and started doing it. At the end of class, when the room was empty he said, “You have a nice office” and left. That was about a month ago. Since then he’s become what some might call a motivated person. He’s pleasant, brings his materials and participates.
Why do people act like this and what happened there? I have no idea, but clearly there was much more than a nap involved. Some wall fell down. A new understanding was born between us and something important happened.
People sometimes work hard at putting up fences to keep others from coming in their inner world and messing things up. I don’t know why people do that, but they do. If you’re going to be a teacher, you have to understand this has nothing to do with motivation and nothing to do with you. Your job is to wait patiently, look for an opening in the fence and when you see it, reach in and say the right thing. A miracle happens when we are able to do this.
It’s as simple and as complex as that. — Chuck Sandy
Connect with Chuck, Scott, Tamas, Vladimira, Nour, Ann and other iTDi Associates, Mentors, and Faculty by joining iTDi Community. Sign Up For A Free iTDi Account to create your profile and get immediate access to our social forums and trial lessons from our English For Teachers and Teacher Development courses.
Like what we do? Become an iTDi Patron.
Your support makes a difference.
I hear you. I often teach young learners, and they tend to let you know a little more quickly when they are uninterested in something.
Motivation is a funny word. I often associate it with motion. When folks feel like they are moving…or making progress, they tend to get it on. When they feel stuck or overwhelmed, they’ll often send non-verbal signals to let you know.
As educators, we need to develop the skills to turn those frowns upside down. Maintaining ability-specific challenges can be difficult in pre-determined curriculums, but it can be done with a little creativity and a lot of heart.
Great post. I’ll go into the classroom a bit more aware tomorrow!
Eric Kane
As usual, Chuk, you have touch the perfection.
It , sometimes, is like we are much occupied with multiple tasks of teaching that we ignore these sides of capturing a student from the inner side. Ignoring this ultimately gives us a temporary result of academic grades but not a lasting one that is the building of a character through simple acts of motivation. Tolerance and positivity in teaching are the key to motivation.
I would love to be more careful in my class.
I have always found that my students are motivated when I don’t use herd mentality on them. I can’t motivate the “group”, as so often lectured at seminars, I can only help the individual. That means, I see her as one person, with unique ideas. I only have to find ONE idea that tweaks her interest, and the rest is done.
Feeling stupid is one of the most common emotional responses in ESL, especially if the student is really smart in something else. I use their gift in the other area to help them see they are smart in my class, too. If they are good at math, I ask them to explain something to me in Math, but trying to use English. If they can draw, I ask them to draw for me at the board.
Finding the uniqueness in every student just works for me!
Joanne in Saudi Arabia
Getting students involved in the learning process and encouraging them to think about their own ideas of motivation, rather than how teachers define it can also be helpful. Why are they studying English? Ideally, what do they expect to get out of class? How can English be connected to other aspects of life that they find interesting?
By shifting the focus to the student’s perspective, and integrating their ideas into the learning process, “motivation” turns from a word with little meaning into action that can make learning more meaningful and engaging.
Dear Mathew,
I like the idea of dealing with motivation on individual rather than group basis.
Fascinating story. I’m a great believer in the idea that there are really only two emotions- love and fear (and only the first one is real). If someone acts out, it’s always a call for love….and when you can manage to give it, like you did, rather than responding defensively, then the fear (anger, whatever) often just melts away (and the miracle happens). Great stuff.
Chuck makes some good points, although very classroom specific to his teaching situation and with one student specifically. The student who had a headache. In some cases, looking at motivation in a broader sense, looking at, for example, the question whether standardized testing motivates students to achieve higher tests scores or does TBLT related to expectancy value theories of motivation actually increase student motivation. Specifically, when motivation might be related to curriculum and syllabus making decisions, which some might not consider directly related to teacher personality and what helps or hinders student learning in regards to classroom practices. I think there is some merit in the word motivation. But at the end of the day, understanding how are students feel about learning and literally feel! Headaches included is extremely important. Thanks for the post Chuck. It got my mind buzzing.
Yes, ‘motivation’ is like insisting on positive thinking. It just doesn’t work in the long term. I liked the offer you made of a nap in your office. It speaks to valuing well being over producing some result in the classroom, as well as knowing that given space the mind will automatically rise back into its own well being and then the production side of things takes care of itself.
Best wishes,
Richard
Dear, Chuck. it was a great pleasure for me to have your tutorial lesson in Uhamka University. Honestly, you have given me more spirit to do better in teaching. Now, i’m trying to. And I think we need more connection to share our ideas to all English teachers in Indonesia. Thanks for your support.
I have always felt that the teacher can never ‘motivate’ a student, since such ‘motivation’ often becomes coercion. And then we become the caricature teacher, the one with the big stick and the loud voice and the fascist laws. We can encourage, we can support, we can empathise, but we can’t motivate. That’s what people do for themselves, and some days we do it, and others we don’t.
We can come to an understanding about the work in the classroom, how and why it gets done. And often we need to allow ‘nap time’ to get back someone who suddenly ‘does the work’.
I find, in the public school system, often that ‘nap time’ can only be given to a student when I do the silly ‘speaking tests’. That’s where I can interact, encourage, and even be a little silly. And I can allow silence to be an answer as well.