Motivation relates to the areas of affect, interest and focus. Each individual student who walks through our door comes with his/her own unique affective domain and interests—both of which play a pivotal part in keeping the child focused. The affective domain relates to what is going on in the child’s personal environment which has an adverse effect on how this child performs in school. The area of interest of the child directly correlates to differentiating instruction for the child. What does he/she like to read? What kind of genre? What sports, hobbies or pastimes prompt attention? What kind of music, movies? Who is their hero? What do they dream of becoming when they grow up?
As educators we need to suspend all assumptions. This is part of our Guiding Principles of our PBS program called STAR STATUS. As educators, we cannot make the assumption that we “know” all there is to know about our students the moment they walk through the door. To make this assumption will hinder us from putting forth sincere effort and time to get to know our students as individuals. However, when we approach our students’ areas of need by learning their affective domain and interest, we begin to build a relationship with them. It is this relationship which plays a key part to motivate them and keep them focused on the rigor and relevance of learning.
Building relationships means having a sincere and strategic plan of action to put forth the effort to really, really get to know our students.
TIPS:
1. Take 2 minutes for 10 days to talk with a student one on one about an area
of personal interest to them in order to begin to build a bridge of trust.
After the ten days, begin the process with another student. Continue until
you have completed the process with every student in your class.
2. Volunteer to participate in our Fall and Spring Neighborhood Walks.
3. Volunteer to attend non-academic events involving our students. This requires a major sacrifice on our part, especially when it means giving up some of our own personal time, yet our students really feel valued when they see us outside our regular educational routine.
These are just a few among a variety of things we can do to build bridges of communication and trust in order to motivate our students. The most encouraging comment I once received as a principal is when a teacher said to me, “Mrs. Burlock, I wake up now every morning and smile because I like coming to work.” This teacher communicated personal motivation which she later confirmed to me stemmed from how our school’s PBS program was beginning to take off. After her comment I thought, what if every child at our school woke up and smiled and thought “I like coming to school.”
As educators we all know that daily we play a big part in this motivation. And even though we are not the only ones influencing this motivation, how we interrelate and communicate with our students is a significant factor in this motivation.
So as we begin our new school year, let’s think of what would make us say to ourselves, “I just like coming to work” and let’s work together to promote this same motivation in our Petree students.
Mrs. Burlock, Principal
Quote for the minute: “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Walt Disney
