Motivation is A Funny Thing
By Dr. Jennifer Bashant
I hear from many educators who tell me that their students aren’t motivated to do the things they need to do, especially with regard to completing challenging work. This, of course, is the source of a lot of tension and stress as the teacher grasps for ways to motivate the child. The attempts usually begin with incentives, then progress to consequences, and sometimes even end in nagging and yelling. The results are usually not positive, and typically end up decreasing motivation and damaging the relationship. So why does this happen, and what can you do about it?
I’d like to start by sharing a story about my own family. My husband and I have three children who were all under the age of five at one point. I was home with my children when they were this age, and it was such a magical time for me! I loved seeing the world through their eyes. Their curiosity and enthusiasm for learning new things and discovering their world was so fun to witness. I was in love with teaching them, exposing them to new places and experiences, reading to them and playing with them. We have always been a huge reading family…there are overstuffed bookshelves in every room of our house, and we were often pushing our library limit of 50 books at a time. Reading together before bed was a very special part of our nightly routine. When my oldest began first grade, part of his homework was to read 20 minutes every day and record this in a reading log, then have it signed by a parent. The teacher also explained that the student who read the most books during the month would win a prize. It was really interesting to see what happened for my son.
He started to view reading as an assignment – something he HAD to do. He also put pressure on himself to read as many books as he could so he could win the prize. Rather than selecting books that interested him, he began whipping through the shortest books he could find so he could record a higher number of books. If we happened to miss a night, he became upset because he had to read EVERY night for 20 minutes. We also noticed that he would often stop reading after 20 minutes, whereas in the past, he may have sat in his bed and read for over an hour before falling asleep.
This was my introduction to and crash course in intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Early in his life, we had witnessed the power of my son’s intrinsic motivation to read. He sought out so many types of books and experienced pure joy when reading and learning. Once reading was incentivized, his behavior changed drastically for the worse. Through the years, I have seen so many examples of this with my own children, but also with other children in schools. Motivation has always been a topic of interest for me, and I am going to share with you some of what Daniel Pink’s research says about how to increase motivation.
Touch on the Three Components of Motivation
Mastery – is the task novel and engaging (or are we simply encouraging compliance)? Does the child have the skill to complete the task?
Autonomy – have you given the child choice over how and when this task will be completed?
Purpose – does the child understand WHY this task is important and how it contributes to the bigger picture?
If you are struggling with a student who is currently unmotivated, just know that it doesn’t have to stay this way. All humans are motivated by mastery, autonomy and purpose, so the more you can incorporate these into required tasks/activities, the more motivation you will see. I would begin by taking a close look at the systems and routines you have in place in the classroom. Look for ways in which you may have inadvertently created if-then scenarios, then seek to replace them with more engaging, self-driven systems. Once you tap into a child’s intrinsic motivation, you will be able to step back from being the constant cheerleader, and feel confident that the child is learning the amazing feeling of taking responsibility for his/her own learning!