Motivating Students Who Don’t Care

“For some students, being viewed as unmotivated or “bad” is preferable to being seen as “stupid.” Some students find power and control in their refusal to work.” (Mendler, p.2) We all have a level of self preservation. We don’t want to be seen as not being able to do something or considered inept at anything if we can avoid it. Some of this simply comes down to a misunderstanding of being able to say “I don’t know”.? If we would be able to say that more often we would have the mindset that this is okay to not know something while also admitting others can help and we can find the answers together. Students do this all the time when they try and have that level of self preservation. I see parents do this also when I speak to them about their son or daughter’s misbehavior. There is a level of frustration that comes out because they don’t want to be thought of or seen as a poor parent. For all these situations it really comes down to having that relationship with people so they know it is okay to release that struggle for power and pride and allow others to help along. We should be willing to allow others to help that can help and are there to help.

“As an expert on motivation, educators often ask me how to get disengaged students motivated. My answer is pretty simple but not easy: spark interest or reawaken what once came naturally but was somehow interrupted. What makes you want to do something, go somewhere, or have something?”(Mendler, p.3) This is a simple answer, but isn’t easy to find for some of our students. Much of this comes down to a mindset of bleiveing that all students at some point want to learn about something of interest. This is something that all of us truly can relate to in some way throughout our life. We have all had those moments in life when something was interesting to us and we wanted to dig deeper into the understanding of that topic. Finding the spark for students is a matter of getting to know them and then finding what that is for them. Simple but not easy for some of the students we come into contact with. “To get and keep students motivated, they must derive sufficient pleasure from the effort to learn or see how the learning you offer is likely to make their lives better now or in the future.” (Mendler, p.3)

“Make effort a core mindset. Let students know that you will not accept or tolerate surrender. Don’t accept “I can’t” or “It’s too hard.” Require them to add “so far” or “yet” to these statements, which changes the challenge from a permanent to a temporary obstacle they will eventually overcome.” (Mendler, p.8) I would says similar to the previous things mentioned this comes down to modeling and showing students you won’t give up. I think the more you show students you won’t give up on them it works twofold to show them you care while also modeling how to work through difficulties and grow. When you show this type of effort it is helpful to the student and also helps to build the rest of the community within your classroom culture. All students at some point have put in effort into something. Unfortunately there are some students that have faced adversity and either been given the freedom to quit or give up. If we validate effort and make sure students understand the importance of effort the next things we will see will be growth and progress.

“Teach your students to think of a difficult challenge or poor performance as temporary rather than permanent.” (Mendler, p.9) This comes from a growth mindset and for many educators this should first be something that comes from their personal mindset. We have to believe everyone is able to grow from difficulties and poor performance. If we don’t stat with this basic tenet as educators than I am not sure we should be doing what we are doing. Sometimes I don’t know if we model this even with our own colleagues. Regardless of age or experience people are capable of growth and we should be able to expect this of ourselves as well as our fellow colleagues. If we expect growth we will find ourselves growing which will ha ve a natural impact on those around us as well. We cannot underestimate the impact we can have on others when we are working on growing ourselves.

“A good rule of thumb is the three-five strategy. If you give students three practice problems to measure mastery and a student gets them all correct, consider the concept mastered and move on. If mastery is still lacking after the teacher intervenes five times with alternative explanations that may include other teaching strategies, it is fair to conclude that the challenge is excessive and needs to be changed. As with all strategies, use your discretion.” (Mendler, p.9) This is a relevant and still impactful problem with many educators. We think back to either the ways in which we learned or we lean into our curriculum materials too much. What happens is we can expect too much in terms of mastery of a skill. We should always be considering what we need to consider a skill mastered. If it can be shown in three problems instead of five or ten we shouldn’t get hung up on students doing all of them. There is always a balance and I understand there are different types of problems so exposure to many types can be helpful, but we need to consider balance especially with students are are less motivated. Where we get caught up is thinking we are giving into their lack of motivation, but what we should consider is how we are modifying what that student needs at that particular time while also gathering data still on mastery of that skill.

“Grades cannot adequately provide a comprehensive picture of performance because many teachers try to cover too many variables in a grade, which makes it hard to measure growth (Watson, 2019)” (Mendler, p.14) We need to consider and evaluate our grading practices. We have not updated the grading practices in many of our schools which in many ways are not effectively measuring what we need to be measuring. We should always think about what we are measuring and how we are measuring it. If we aren’t considering the ways we measure learning we are failing to evaluate learning and teaching.? “My observations suggest that making students wait more than three days for feedback often negates its valuable effect on learning.” (Mendler, p.17) This is another factor that plays into the previous point made. If we are not giving timely feedback there is a lack of any effective feedback actually happening. This comes back to evaluating what we are grading and what is considered mastery on a skill. If we start with the end in mind it will help to create a more manageable enviornment for feedback that is impactful.?

“We have a much better chance of getting effort from unmotivated students when we let them know that they are more important than what they do. Although behavior has consequences, student motivation seems to increase when students know we care more about them than their actions.” (Mendler, p.18) Without first letting students know they are important as people first we will fail to reach them as much as we can. All people need to know that are valuable as a person. If we are able to show them they are valuable as people first this creates a level of trust which will positively impact learning and retention of that learning. I think one of the best ways to create this type of motivation through caring is having crucial conversations with students. Being able to communicate especially after mistakes have been made go a long way to helping the student understand there is a level of care beyond compliance.

“A well-known principle of human behavior is that when we ask someone to do us a favor, we will be more successful if we provide a reason for our request (Langer, 1989).” (Mendler, p.21) You go through creating motivation for anyone it starts with knowing “why”. If we know why we are doing something it goes further than just doing something out of compliance. When people lose motivation or get stuck in a type of rut it is usually due to losing that perspective in why they started something in the first place. Education is so personal and can be so draining emotionally that there may not be a more important perspective for educators to consider than their “why”.

“Consider having each student develop an individual honor roll to record improvement when they make progress toward a goal.” (Mendler, p.33) We all need goals. When we have goals we are working towards we have reasons for motivation. If we are able to have students develop goals and mark their progress we are able to instill in them what it is like to have something to work towards. Regardless of the age of student or really the age of a person we all should take note of goals and progress we are making. We should never stop learning and therefore should never stop making goals to work towards. Motivation comes from those goals and working towards them. The more of a habit we have to do this the more we create more motivation to have more goals to work towards.

“Keep in mind that challenging students have often learned not to trust and are initially wary of people who treat them well.” (Mendler, p.37) Most of the students that are giving us the most challenges are exactly the ones who have faced challenges and learned that trust is not something to give to others. This is one of the hardest things to realize as an educator becuase of how challenging some of the students can be at times. It is hard to realize that these are the students that are crying out for help the most. All behavior is a form of communication and therefore when a student is misbehaving they are communicating something loudly. It takes time to earn the trust of those students and it isn’t always easy to figure out what works to get that trust. The best piece of advice from my experience is it takes not giving up even when you have students that challenge you consistently. Also, there are many times we won’t see the seeds we plant take root and grow in a person but we cannot underestimate those seeds.

“Similarly, most teachers claim to care about their students, yet fewer than half of all students believe their teacher cares about them (Loewus, 2012).” (Mendler, p.46) This quote should speak volumes to all educators. Thinking intentionally about our interactions with students on a daily basis should not go unattended. We should be thinking through how we connect with our students. Now, what I will say to might refute this some is that I think developing the connection in a strong enough way for a studnet to realize we care for them is complex and not easy to measure. I think over the course of any given year for a teacher that has 20-25 students it is tricky to develop a strong connection with each of them. I think how this would be worded to a student matters as well. We should not overlook this statistic at all, but I would say we need to be careful to say this the norm around the classrooms. Students sometimes can think that a teacher doesn’t care for them because they are on them about doing better, but in reality that might be exactly what that student needs to be successful. The student perspective of “caring” just might look different than the adult perspective. When as a parent I limit the things my kids might do or eat that is for their own good and that is caring for them, but I doubt in those moments they would claim that is me caring for them.

“Most of the time, refusals to work and inappropriate behaviors that challenge the teacher’s authority are manifestations of a student’s desire to take control of his or her life. By acting against the norms, these students affirm that they can have influence (Mendler & Mendler, 2012).” (Mendler, p.47) What I think this really says is that we all seek to have control or power. I think whenever you have students that are giving some challenging behaviors it is very likely it is due to seeking out control and power because that is probably what they are lacking in other areas of their life. Unfortunately we are seeing this more and more because more students are lacking the control and power at home or outside of school so they are seeking to regain that power or control within the school environment.

“Students feel respected and are likely to feel motivated when you ask for their opinion and there is tangible evidence that their opinion influences what happens in the classroom.” (Mendler, p.48) One of the best things I did as a classroom teacher is move more and more into having classroom discussions and doing so developing classroom norms. When I did this is wasn’t just on my own, but rather it was done with the students in the classroom. When doing this it developed that sense of ownership within the classroom and their opinions were heard. We can do this more in all our classrooms and when we do so it allows for that motivation to happen and it is able to seep into all the others in the classroom as well.

“When students are removed from class for misbehavior, it is not unusual for them to return shortly after and pick up where they left off. Few things can be more frustrating to teachers who conclude that “nothing was done.”” (Mendler, p.53) This is something that coming from a now principal’s perspective is frustrating to hear from teachers. I know that there was something done and ultimately I work to get a studnet back into a learning environment. What we are currently working on in my school now is a way for the conversations to be had with the teacher in those moments instead of the conversations always happening with me and the student. What we have found is when a student is being challenging in class the problem cannot usually be discussed in that moment and therefore a studnet needs to be removed for everyone’s sake. The followup to that is discussing with the student (once they have calmed down) what happened, why it happened, and how we can avoid future related incidents. What we are working on in my school is for that discussion to happen with the teacher directly involved so that trust and relationship can be further built.

“Fewer power struggles take place when students have choices about how to achieve expected outcomes (Mendler & Mendler, 2012).” (Mendler, p.58) Choice is one of the best ways of achieving some motivation for students. It goes back to that control and power the student is looking for at school. When we engage in any type of power struggle with students we end up in a situation that is really lose/lose. We will end up with a level of consequences for the student that was probably avoidable and we will end up also losing some of the trust of the student as well.

“The best way to regularly connect with unmotivated students is by being sincere, honest, and genuine.” (Mendler, p.63) All young people have the ability to realize when we are being fake. If we try and fake it too much we students they will pick up on this and realize we are not really sincere with them and with ourselves either. We need to be able to be honest with ourselves and show our students the classroom is a safe space. This is what we are doing when we are honest and sincere with students is showing them they also have a space to feel safe to be themselves. If we do this often enough we will find them want to hold onto this space and therefore being motivated to do what they are supposed to be doing. “Let students know more about you both as an adult and as a younger person. When you see them struggling, take the opportunity to share some of your own similar struggles and how you handle them now or handled them in the past.” (Mendler, p.64)

“For purposes of increasing effectiveness with an unmotivated student, invest two uninterrupted, undivided minutes per day for ten consecutive days (or as close to that time frame as you can), with the sole purpose of relationship building with a challenging student (Curwin, Mendler, & Mendler, 2018; Wlodkowski, 1983).” (Mendler, p.69) One of the most effective ways I have found to reach and motivate students is taking time to talk with them. When we take time to talk with students we find out more about them and them about us. I also suggest that with these minutes that you talk about their life and not about school. We should work on getting to know them and their life and not focus solely on school.? “If you were required to submit a “building relationships” lesson plan for one week, what would you include?” (Mendler, p.73) We should be intentional about building relationships with our students. What would it look like if you worked on developing a relationships lesson plan? I think this is something that isn’t taught enough in the classes for teaching. We talk about developing relationships but we don’t always go through what this looks like and some ways of doing this that are simple and effective.

“Who are the most positive, optimistic, encouraging people you know? What words or phrases do they use naturally? What gestures and other nonverbal cues do they use when expressing these words? Make a list of these verbal and nonverbal behaviors so you can use some of them to convey support and appreciation to your students.” (Mendler, p.77) Think also about what it is that motivates you. Who motivates you? How can you make sure to intentionally put yourself in spots to be around them and help you which in turn often is reciprocal. When we are around people that are encouraging we will see the benefits to this spill out into our other relationships. Positivity breeds more positivity. This is why it matters who we keep as company and this goes for all people, but especially for those in education because the entire profession is about relationships.

“Students can identify teachers who have taught the same subject in the same way over and over; the material often becomes boring and lifeless. Because learning is sometimes about taking risks, challenge yourself to breathe new life into old material by adding different perspectives on the same content, offering new content, or adjusting your teaching style.” (Mendler, p.79) One of my favorite scenes from the show Ted Lasso is when he quotes Walt Whitman’s “Be curious, not judgmental.” I think when we stop being curious about the world around us is when things turn from being life long learning to just judging those things around us. We should be willing to take risks in learning and we should be willing to always be moving forward in our learning. This shouldn’t stop when we find ways of teaching that are impactful. This is one of the dangers of being in euaiton for a long time. We should always aim for being more curious than we are judgmental and push ourselves to take risks. We do this and we will find the students are willing to join us in this journey and will be motivated along the way. “Our ongoing challenge is to find ways of reconnecting with the natural learner that exists in each of us, so students reawaken with excitement and enthusiasm to the process of learning. Our students need us to have high expectations, apply consequences that teach them when they make mistakes, and affirm who they are. They need us to not give up on them, especially when they are giving up on themselves.” (Mendler, p.93)

References

Mendler, Allen N.. Motivating Students Who Don't Care. Solution Tree Press. Kindle Edition.?