Jim McGrath and Anthony Coles - Your Teacher Training Handbook

Extra tutorial on motivation

How to maintain your motivation

Aim of tutorial; To help you to identify strategies that you can use to motivate
yourself and your learners.

Contents:
• Why do you study and what are your goals?
• What is the source of your motivation?
• Identification of your aims, objectives and ambitions.
• Identification of any internal barriers to learning which you and/or your
learners may have such as, self doubt, the imposter and threshold
syndromes, family and peer pressure, previous failures, and lack of
focus.
• Strategies for combating internal barriers including positive self regard,
target and goal setting, and visualisation.

Review of transcript
Sue was hanging a picture of herself and partner on the wall when I entered.
She was wearing a short Latin American style dress and her partner looked
like an escapee from a bad film about bull fighting. Clearly they had just
competed in another dance competition.

Looking closely at the photo I was unable to resist asking, ‘Why do you both
look so orangey?’

Sue laughed and leaning forward whispered, ‘Fake tan. Richard was so
angry. He had a lecture to give the next day to some visiting dignitaries and
he couldn’t wash the stuff off. He was mortified.’
I smiled and set-up my recorder as Dr Storm found her pen and some paper.
‘Ok’ she said, ‘Today we’re going to talk about motivation and how you can
use it to overcome any barriers that you might have to learning.’

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‘I’m not sure that I need to look at barriers to learning or motivation. I’m well
motivated to do the course and I’m pretty confident in my ability to pass just
about any exam in my own area of expertise.’ I said confidently.

‘That’s good, I’m glad to hear that you are so positive. But your confidence is
precisely why we need to look at motivation. Let me explain. You have been
successful at school. You passed your GCSEs and you were rewarded for
your achievement by the recognition and congratulations of your family and
friends. The same thing happened when you passed your A’ Levels and
graduated from university. In the education game you are a winner. You know
from experience the value of education and if you are successful on this
course you are likely to earn your living from education. But, and it is a big
but, many of the learners you will come across have only ever encountered
failure in education. Many of them don’t see the value of education and those
that do very often have to overcome the physiological scares inflicted on them
by the unintended actions or words of parents and teachers’.

Dr. Storm had expressed her views with such passion that for a moment I was
taken aback. Here was a woman who believed in education and teaching. I
wasn’t about to get in her way. ‘So what type of barriers are we talking about?’
I asked.

‘Let’s start with low expectations. If you come from a background where
education is seen as unimportant, it is very easy to believe that education is a
waste of time. Indeed you may even be positively discouraged from learning
because your parents don’t believe that education is for the likes of them or
their children. Unless this attitude is tackled at early by the time the child
reaches secondary school they are already disengaged from education. You
have to find a way to reengage them. To make education relevant to them.’

‘How am I supposed to do that?’

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‘I didn’t say it was easy but keep your eyes open and you may find the
answers in the most surprising places. I was watching ‘The Wire’ on TV and
one of the characters started to teach maths in a run-down high school. The
kids weren’t interested in learning any maths until the teacher decided to use
dice and card games to teach them basic probability. Basically he turned them
into better craps and poker players. That was his way in. Once he’d hooked
them he was able to move on to other aspects of maths, while all the time
showing the kids the practical application of what they were learning.’

At the mention of ‘The Wire’ my ears pricked up. I’d seen the same episode
but I hadn’t made the connection between what I saw and my teaching. ‘So if I
was teaching in an inner city comprehensive I could link ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to
problems with gang or gun crime to make it more real?’

‘Absolutely. And even if your school is in a leafy suburb such a linkage will
appeal to the learners. Because that’s what they see on TV and in films. Your
aim is to draw them back into education. Once you have their attention you
can start to work on the doubts and fears that they have. What do you think
most young people fear most?’

‘Well when I was at school I didn’t want to show myself up, to look a fool in
front of my mates or the girls.’

‘I think that is probably still the case. Young people hate to be embarrassed in
front of their friends. And one of the biggest embarrassments is to try
something and fail. Now if you have a young person who has been told by
their parents and teachers that education is not for them they are unlikely to
risk failure and embarrassment. Instead they will withdraw and make out that
they think trying is un-cool and for wimps.’

‘But teachers don’t tell children that education is not for them. Not even bad
teachers.’
‘Don’t they? Teachers and parents don’t have to use words. Their tone of
voice, body language and their expectations are all picked up on by the child

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and internalised. So by the age of eleven most children know what is

expected of them. Your job is to expect more from them and to help them
break through the self imposed limits that they have established for
themselves. How might you do that?’

I gave myself a few moments before I responded. ‘They need to be turned on

to education and to recognise that they have some ability. I need to engineer
it so that they have a success that they can be proud of.’

‘Very good. I like it. You need to find something that the child can do well and
then give them the opportunity to succeed.’

‘OK, But I would need to keep giving them more difficult tasks to build up their
self-belief.’

‘Indeed. Providing them with just a one-off success could do more harm than
good. What you want to try to do is turn them on to educational success. To
get them to believe that education is for them and that they can succeed. If
you can establish that you are half way home.’

Alex’s reflection
I need to start thinking about how I can make what I have

to say relevant to the kids. I love “The Wire”, how could I

have missed the point of Pryzblewski’s scene in the class

room. Probably because I wasn’t thinking like a teacher. If

I’m teaching Shakespeare maybe I can grab the kid’s

attention by showing them Baz Luhrmann ‘s Romeo and

Juliet. Or Danny DeVito’s “Renaissance Man.” I could even

link it to things that happen in the soaps or “Footballers’

Wives” if its still on. If I’m teaching maths or science I can

use some of the drama documentaries to show how scientists

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and mathematicians struggled to discover new knowledge

and how their discoveries affect us today. I need to start

thinking like a teacher and pick-up ideas from wherever I

can find or pinch them.

I also need to think about some tasks that I could give my

future learners that would be reasonably easy to complete

and which would build up their confidence. To do that well

I’ll have to get to know the kids. Find out what they enjoy

and are good at. So if someone hates writing essays maybe

they would fancy writing a song or rap. And in history they

might like to look at the history of modern through the

music that people listened to.

Space for your notes

Review of transcript

‘So what else can I do to motivate them?’

‘Talk to them about their ambitions and goals. What do they want to achieve
and then set some short, medium and long term goals. For example agree
with them a list of short term goals that thy can achieve in say a week or a
month such as learning their lines for a play or a new dribbling trick on the

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football pitch. Set some termly goals such as reading the set books on the
syllabus and then set some long term goals for the end of the year such as
getting a B or better in the GCSE Exam. Note I said a B not a C. Expect more
from them than the minimum and you will get it. What is essential is that you
recognise the learner’s achievement each time they achieve a goal.’

‘That’s pretty much what I do each year for myself. I set targets for completing
each assignment and I have a target mark that I am aiming for in each module
and for the course overall.’

‘That’s good. But some of your learners may never have even considered
having a plan of action. You will need to explain to them how to draw up a set
of aims and objectives. And it is really important that they are their aims an
objectives not just yours. Try to get them to list as many simple short term
objectives as possible, ones that they’re sure to achieve. But also include
some more challenging long term aims.’

‘Sneaky,’ I said. ‘You want them to achieve as many easy objectives as

possible in order to give them the confidence to tackle the harder long term
objectives.’

‘That is exactly what IBM used to do with their staff. Every member of staff
was given a series of aims and objectives to achieve at the start of the year.
Around 95% of these aims were easy to achieve but the remaining 5% were
much more difficult. The idea was that people’s self confidence was improved
by success and this enabled them to tackle some of the really difficult
objectives that they had been given.’

‘So effectively IBM was trying to get the staff to feel good about themselves
and their abilities.’

‘Exactly. You should do the same. Encourage your learners to develop a

positive self regard for themselves by talking to themselves and recognising
what they are good at. For years they may have been using internal

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monologues as a means of telling themselves that they can’t spell or write

clearly. What you need to do is get them to change that monologue. Get them
to banish negative thoughts and to constantly think “I can” rather than “I can’t”.
It will be hard for them at first but every time you hear them saying “I can’t”
challenge them and ask “Why can’t you”?’ If you constantly demonstrate that
you have faith in them than slowly you can change their mindset.’

‘It doesn’t sound easy.’

‘It’s not. It takes time, but if you can improve their self belief and change their
attitude towards education than that’s worth far more than teaching them
Shakespeare or a list of formula or dates. What you want them to do is start to
dream about academic success. You want to get them excited at the thought
of passing their exams and how that will improve their lives. What I am talking
about here is encouraging the learners to dream, to visualise how they will
feel when they succeed. I failed my 11 plus and from that moment on my sole
aim was to prove to all the teachers who had doubted me that I was better
academically then them. I used to dream of going back to my junior school
and rubbing their noses in my academic successes. That was my motivation.’

Alex’s reflection
OK. I need to get my learners to list their short, medium and

long term goals and to help them to break that down into a

series of objectives and targets. That’s the way I tend to work

but I don’t want to overwhelm the kids. Maybe I’ll just start

with weekly objectives and after a few weeks when the kids

have got used to the process and had some success I can

introduce medium and long term targets.

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I like the idea of trying to get the kids to change their

interior monologues. One of the few things in life I’m sure of

is that if you tell yourself you can’t do something then you

will never prove yourself wrong!. As well as building up the

kids self -confidence by giving them tasks which they can

achieve I need to get them to stop being so self critical. Too

much self criticism can become a prison from which they can

never escape. Everyone needs someone to believe in them.

Maybe I can be that someone.

Hell I sound as if I am out to save the world!

Space for your notes

Review of transcript
‘Did you ever go back to your junior school?’ I asked.

‘No. I grew up instead. But I used that anger and the image of my successful
return to motivate myself. Even so junior school still left a mark on me. Even
after all this time I still suffer from what’s known as the “imposter syndrome”.’

‘The what syndrome?’

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‘The imposter syndrome. For years, whenever I started a new course I had
the feeling that I had no right to be in the class and that that as soon as the
lecturer realised how little I knew they would ask me to leave. Of course that
never happened, but it is a hang over from my experience of junior school
where nothing I did was good enough. We know from research that a lot of
learners in further and higher education suffer from the same self doubts, and
politicians telling them that their GCSEs and A’ Levels are sub-standard does
not help.’

‘I never realised that it was such a widespread problem.’

‘It often goes hand in hand with the threshold syndrome. This is where
learners have so little confidence in their own learning ability that they find it
near impossible to enter an FE college or university. It’s as if such places
were forbidden to them. Some of your older learners who attend the local FE
college for their courses may fall into this group.’

‘So how can I tackle these syndromes?’

‘Well just discussing the syndromes with your students helps them realise that
they are not the only ones with such concerns. As for combating them it all
comes back to confidence. Get the learners to reflect on their successes and
talk to them about what they can expect at college or university. Demystify
both organisations and let the learners see that the people who go to college
and university are just like them.’

‘So how do you keep yourself motivated? I asked.

Dr. Storm smiled before replying. ‘I’m a bit of a romantic. I saw “To Sir with
Love” when I was about fourteen. Not only did I fall in love with Sidney Poitier
I fell in love with the idea of being a teacher that can make a difference. So I
collect films about teachers and teaching which I find inspiring. You would be
amazed at how inspiring and sustaining a really good film can be.’

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‘I love films too. Did you ever see Danny De Vito in “The Renaissance Man”?

‘I did indeed. A great film. As a matter of fact,’ she said, rummaging in a desk
drawer. ‘Somewhere in here I have a list of my favourite films about teachers
and teaching. Ah! here it is.’

I took the hand out (see below) and slipped it into my file without looking at it
as my time was up.
.

Alex’s reflection
I was too embarrassed to tell Dr. Storm that I had suffered

from the imposter syndrome. It was clearly more widespread

than I had thought. Maybe I’ll check out with colleagues

how widespread it is on this course. Certainly I felt very

apprehensive for the first couple of weeks.

As for the threshold problem I can remember being really

intimidated by the university’s main library the first time I

went there. Maybe if I share these experiences with the kids it

will enable them to recognise and talk about their own

hang-ups. No wonder so many kids from poorer backgrounds

find it stressful applying to universities and colleges. It’s an

alien world to them.

Space for your notes

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Record of PDT tutorial

Student: Alex Croft

Summary of key learning points

• Children’s attitude to learning and education is heavily influenced by their
prior experiences of school and their parent’s views on the value of education.
• Before you can work effectively with disaffected children you need to engage
them in the learning process. Find some hook that you can use to draw them
in; think about what interests them and use that as a way of capturing their
attention and interest.
• Never embarrass a learner by setting them up to fail.
• Use small easily achievable targets and objectives to motivate learners and
build up their confidence.
• Help learners to develop short (one week to one month), medium (two to
three months) and long term targets and objectives (four to nine months) and
remember to celebrate their successes.
• Show learners how to complete a timetable.
• Remember that the targets and objectives must be the learner’s not yours.
Otherwise they will not own the targets or be motivated to achieve them.
• Encourage learners to develop positive self-regard by replacing negative
internal narratives with positive narratives. Challenge negative thinking
whenever it arises. Expect the best from your learners.
• Talk to your learners about the impostor and threshold syndromes. Just
knowing that they are not the only ones who have such concerns helps
alleviate the problem. Arrange visits for your learners to the theatre, art
galleries, colleges and universities and other places they may think are not for
“the likes of them”.

Agreed action points

Alex will:
Try and watch at least one of the films listed on the handout which he has not
previously seen and identify at least one idea from it which could improve his
teaching practice.

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Handout
Films to inspire the teacher within us.

Films:
Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939) Robert Donat (Later versions are available but
this a classic).
To Sir with Love (1967) Sidney Poitier.
Stand and Deliver (1988) Edward James Olmos.
The Dead Poets Society (1989) Robin Williams.
The Renaissance Man (1994) Danny de Vito.
Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) Richard Dreyfuss. .
Music of the Heart (1999) Meryl Streep.
Take the Lead (2006) Antony Banderas
The History Boys (2006) Richard Griffiths.
Shall We Dance (2006) Richard Gere (More about the transformational joy of
learning dance than teaching).
Accepted (2006) Justin Long. (A comedy about the nature of learning at
university)

TV Series:

To Serve Them All My Days. (1980) John Duttine BBC TV

All are available on DVD.

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