The power has gone out in my school. It’s very troublesome as the next class that I teach is Film & TV.
Maybe we will just visualize our favourite movies in our head? We have a full 70 minutes, so…
I’m actually unsure what the policy is regarding a lack of power at my school. This never happens to us. We are on the hospital grid so every time we lose power it just comes right back on 2 minutes later.
It’s now been many more minutes than 2.
I suppose now is a good time as any to respond to the 
The prompt was: how do you motivate a child (or in my case, a teen) to reach their full potential?
There is nothing more frustrating than recognizing potential in a student and knowing that they aren’t tapping into it. Sometimes you want to shake your kids. But don’t. Do not do that.
Motivation can be categorized two ways, intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic is the internal form of motivation. This is a student learning because they want to learn and to better themselves. Extrinsic is external; things like marks or praise. Consequences are a form of extrinsic incentive.
As a high school teacher, intrinsic motivation is the dream. Students doing work to just better themselves? What a world that would be. In reality my students seem to be motivated for the "wrong" reasons.
What’s my grade? How can I get a better mark? What will my parents say when they see my report card? Will I get into university if I don’t do well? I want to be on the honour roll!
And so on.
Not that extrinsic motivation doesn’t work. It does. I’m a product of it. In university I really struggled with the change from getting grades to receiving only a pass/fail in some of the courses in the teaching program. In my fourth year of my undergrad I refused to get anything but straight A’s. Why? I don’t really know. I just needed to get that carrot. The result was that I got straight A’s but my health and happiness suffered. I’m also not sure that I retained as much as I would have if I simply cared about bettering myself rather than just seeming better than others.
So how do I motivate my students? It depends on the kid, really. What works for one, doesn’t work for another. I’m not exactly proud of all of the tactics I employ to get my students to hand in work. But we aren’t talking about motivating students to give the bare minimum. We are talking about getting a child to be the best they can be!
I’m interested in the idea of helping students gain a growth mindset. I truly believe if they have the right mindset, they will be intrinsically motivated to learn and participate in the classroom.
A growth mindset is the belief that a person can get better. A fixed mindset involves the conviction that intelligence or ability is static.
Image and further information on the mindsets.
So what can we do as teacher’s to promote a growth mindset?
Seek out Pro-D.
I was lucky enough to have a professional learning group that read Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success and conducted a weekly discussion. At a pub. The pub part was super important. There were nachos.
Build a relationship based on trust with your students.
This is fundamental and hasn’t got a lot to do with mindsets at all. I just think it’s worth mentioning. If students trust you, they will trust your advice. I read a really interesting article that
Examine your own mindset.
I am a pretty positive individual. I tend to try new things on a regular basis. Like rock climbing, and the banjo! I’m really not very good at either, but I’m definitely getting better. When I was younger I did have a fixed mindset about certain things. Like reading! I always just thought I was good at reading. Now I know that I’m actually a fairly slow reader. This was a tough realization for me. Did you know that there are people reading 800+ books a year? What? How is that even possible? Maybe they have a growth mindset.
Watch how you praise children.
Praise and positive reinforcement is a good thing, right? Well, according to Dweck certain kinds of praise actually solidifies a fixed mindset. Saying to a student that they are so good at something, or so smart can actually negatively impact their motivation. This is because when they encounter failure they begin to question if they are smart. They only do activities where they feel that they will be successful, so they can maintain their intellectual status. Studies have shown that praising work ethic and effort meant students were resilient when it came to failure. What mattered was that they kept trying!
Okay, so the power is back on and it is lunchtime!
If you want to read my other blog posts about teaching, check out these!
KP’s Teacher Tales #7: Report Card Survival Tips
KP’s Teacher Tales #6: To Hell With Homework?
Despite what my students may think I do other things than just teach them, so if you are interested in hearing about that you can read these!
The Wookiee and I: He’s a Socially Awkward Wookiee
Book Reviews and Bookish Photos #1: Ready Player One