Motivating Unmotivated Students: Why Your Students Aren’t Motivated and How to Help Them Care

December 24th, 2008 By: Diane Trim in Articles, School Climate, School Turnaround, Teachers' Corner

Pete is a high school junior who loves working with cars, but hates reading Steinbeck. He plans to go to vocational school when he graduates and will maybe be a welder, a construction worker, or an auto mechanic. Pete just doesn’t see the point of all of these required English classes. He doesn’t open his textbook, doesn’t see a reason to write, and doesn’t read at grade level. He’s bored, uninterested, and he’s looking to liven things up a bit.

Sarrah is Pete’s teacher. She teaches in a small, rural Wisconsin high school where many students are like Pete. They don’t plan to go to college and they don’t see the relevance of the curriculum to their plans to go into the workforce, military, or vocational/technical school.

“What I’ve found works is finding non-fiction articles about things like war and other subjects,” Sarrah said. “Then I have to literally read it out loud, or have an audio of fiction books, if we are studying a novel.”

Motivation’s Three Cs

Allen Mendler, Ph.D., is the author of the book Discipline with Dignity. He said that students like Pete are motivated, but not to do what the teacher wants.

“The teacher needs to create a connection between what the kid likes and what she wants him to do,” Mendler said. “Whet his appetite to read and continue reading.”

To whet the student’s appetite, Mendler suggests legitimizing Pete’s current reading. Talk to Pete about the car magazines he enjoys and encourage him to bring them in to show you.

“Engage that kid,” Mendler said. “Match content to some aspect of what he’s interested in and try to make a connection.”

Making that connection is one of Mendler’s Three C’s for motivation. According to Mendler, students need to be connected, competent, and in control.

“No kid is born unmotivated,” Mendler said. “Every toddler is motivated. Just watch one. It’s hard to keep a toddler out of things, keep him away from learning. Learning is intrinsic to people.”

What’s crucial, Mendler said, is when a kid decides not to learn. Mendler insists that you have to ask what is motivating kids to be unmotivated.

Connecting interests with content

Donna, an 8th grade careers teacher in New Mexico, tried making a connection with a student and succeeded.

Kevin was a B and C student until 7th grade, when his grades became Ds and Fs. Kevin really liked dirt bikes, but wasn’t interested in much else. He just didn’t see the point.

Donna connected with Kevin. She affirmed his interest in dirt bikes, but pointed out that he might not make it to the professional circuit. However, writers put together dirt bike magazines. Public relations professionals assist riders’ careers.

Kevin was hooked.

“After he became interested in public relations this year, his grades started to improve,” Donna said. “At the end of the year he had a couple of Bs and the rest were Cs.”

Mendler thinks Donna deserves a pat on the back. “She took an interest of [Kevin’s] and showed him how school content could be of interest, too,” Mendler said. “Kevin saw the relevance and worked to improve.”

Increasing students’ competency

Zach was an 8th grader in Amanda’s South Carolina science classroom. Zach was a nice kid: funny, engaging, pleasant.

Zach was also a sleepy kid. Every science period, Zach would sleep so soundly that nothing would wake him up.

When Zach was awake, he was terrific to have in class. He read below grade level, but he loved to learn and compensated by listening, Amanda said. “He was really into every lesson and really paid attention. He was full of so much knowledge and we had wonderful discussions, but when it came to writing the information down or having to read anything, he was struggling.”

Amanda contacted Zach’s parents, his other teachers, her school administration, and the nurse for help keeping Zach awake.

Finally, she turned to her class. They conducted the Zach experiment and tried all kinds of ways to keep Zach awake in class. Not turning out the lights for PowerPoints worked for a few days; then Zach began to snooze again. Standing up, drinking water, eating a snack all had limited positive effects. Zach continued to sleep.

The only other solution came with the blessing of Zach’s parents: one can of caffeinated Mountain Dew, drunk alongside the teacher during lunch, kept Zach awake.

But it was Amanda’s second strategy that Amanda calls Zach’s defining moment. One day, Amanda pulled Zach aside and asked him to tell her everything he knew about the science topic they were studying. Amanda wrote while he spoke and she filled a page, back and front, with his knowledge.

“This was the defining moment for me and Zach. He could see how smart he really was,” Amanda said. “He studied that one piece of paper and I will never forget the smile on his face at that moment; it was a smile of pride and accomplishment.”

This is where the Three Cs (connection, competence, and control) come into play, Mendler said. “Maybe keeping his head down is a competence thing. [Zach] doesn’t want to look like he doesn’t know the answer. Keeping his head down can be a control issue for some students, too. They know that keeping their heads down can frustrate anyone they want to frustrate.”

Mendler recommends sharing with Zach how his behavior is creating a problem for the teacher. “Pull the student aside and share how the student’s behavior is creating a problem for the teacher,” Mendler said. “Tell the student, ‘You must make an effort to be awake in class. Keeping your head down distracts me, worries me. I’m concerned that you won’t learn any of this. Can you help me fix my problem?’”

Approaching students with the idea that this is a problem for the teacher reduces the student’s defensiveness and increases the likelihood that the student will comply with the teacher’s request, Mendler said.

“Of course, you’ve got to know your students, but humor can work as well,” Mendler said.

Giving the student control

The last story is mine. Diane taught English to at-risk freshman boys. Matt, a student in class, wouldn’t put pen to paper and wouldn’t open a book. Instead, he’d hide in the closet, pull grade-school pranks, and sing at inappropriate times.

Matt’s mother died when he was young and his father was a cross-country truck driver. Matt lived with his grandmother and sometimes his older sister. I felt for him, but I was also frustrated with him.

The only thing that Matt liked was poetry. I had him write reams of it, but he did little else.

“It sounds like this kid is chronically immersed in mal-adapted behavior,” Mendler said. “You have to ask: what’s motivating this kid? It goes back to the three Cs. Students need connection, competence, and control.”

Mendler suggested that Matt’s big problem was probably control. “There’s not a whole lot of stability in Matt’s life,” Mendler said. “Kids sometimes narrow their own choices to feel safe. They stay with the predictable. Poetry gave Matt the opportunity to express himself and he was pretty good at it, so he stuck with it.”

Mendler recommended asking where the places were that Matt could be in control. Get him to be the student helper, ask Matt’s opinion on the direction of a lesson, and give him choices, Mendler said.

“Let Matt feel in charge and build and weave in content from there,” Mendler said. “Frame things in a way so that the kid feels a sense of control.”

Five words to motivate

Mendler recommends the following five words as the keys to student motivation: relationship, relevance, success, involvement, and fun.

According to Mendler, the five words boil down to this: Know your students, know your stuff. Like your students, like your stuff.

“All teachers should know these,” Mendler said. “They’re simple to remember, but hard to do.”

Tags: connection, motivation