The Right Attitude!!! :)

Here are some phrases I've heard from my teachers...


"You have to put in the effort to be successful."
"You need to have the right attitude."
"You have to put in the effort."


These are not exact quotes, but this captures the essence of the message that some of my teachers are telling to a class full of my peers and I. It is a noble thing to try and motivate students, but to be honest, it seems like splashing water on a brick wall. It doesn't really do much.

In every class, there are obviously different kinds of students, with different degrees of inner motivation. Some want to do the work, others don't want to, or don't care as much. Lecturing hurts both groups, because the workers don't need to be motivated, and an urgent message of preparing for the future very rarely reaches the others- in the end, all it does is waste everyone's time.

I put myself in the group of motivated students. Whenever a teacher of mine talks about things that I find obvious, such as the fact that you have to do actual work (gasp!) to get anywhere, I only listen on the surface, waiting for it to be over. My classmates either look with glassy stares or don't look at the teacher at all. The message, however true and important, isn't reaching people. In fact, it kind of reminds me of the pointy-haired boss in Dilbert, who's always trying to get his employees excited about things like "being proactive" and "optimizing performance." It's a rare person who wants to get speeches like that.

So, how are students motivated? What is the essential difference between hard workers and slackers? My guess is that it comes from their upbringing, internal values, and sense of reality in the world. These are difficult things to change, especially for a well-intentioned teacher urging on a class of high school students.

I think that one way that teachers could help, though, is to treat their students on an equal level. The only thing that lecturing is doing is making students feel that teachers don't respect them (although obviously they do, otherwise they wouldn't care if we failed our classes). In my personal experience, teachers who have respected me as a person have earned a great deal more respect from me.

Not to sound cheesy, but that's the right attitude to have.


Ylerecnis,
N