Gimme Some Motivation

Contrary to popular belief, the most important job a teacher has is not to help their students pass standardized tests.  I know, I know.  That may sound like a radical idea.  After all, the job security for teachers and principals is largely based on the performance of their students on standardized tests.  So it may seem a bit odd that I’m telling you that one of the most important factors that will get a teacher’s contract renewed (or not renewed) each year isn’t necessarily what the teacher needs to devote his focus to.

(By the way, it’s worth noting that I’m not completely against standardized tests.  There has to be some sort of way for comparing students & schools to determine who is being successful and who’s not.  In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a need for tests.  Every student would thrive.  Every school would give Disneyland competition for the title of the Happiest Place On Earth.  However, given that students are all unique and no two schools are the same, there really isn’t a standardized test that is accurately going to assess every child.  In truth, standardized tests aren’t completely worthless.  If used correctly, the data gained from standardized tests can have an incredibly positive impact on improving teacher instruction.  Anyway, back to the point of this post…)

What should a teacher’s number one priority be?  Well, I’m glad you asked! 

A teacher’s priority numero uno is to instill a sense of hope into each and every child he interacts with.

I don’t care if we’re talking about a kid growing up in middle-class suburbia or one growing up in the ghetto getting by on food stamps.  Hope is essential for either one to experience success.

Hope is what every child needs, yet, unfortunately, too many children are living without any sense of hope that their life will be successful and fulfilling.

The causes for this are too numerous to list.  Growing up without a father or living in the seemingly never-ending cycle of poverty are two causes of this sense of hopeless that quickly come to mind.  If you don’t have a father to look up to and model what being successful is, what is there that will propel you to overcome this and become successful in your own right?  Likewise, if you’re born into poverty that has been passed down from generation to generation, what is there that’s going to make you feel like you’re going to be any different?

The answer is hope.

It’s not about teaching to the test so your students can pass.  It’s not about taking pity on the hopeless.

When it comes to hope, I don’t mean telling a student they can be anything they want to be as long as they’re willing to work really hard.  If I would have had a teacher tell me I could have been the NBA’s next dominant center as long as I spent enough time in the gym, I would have wound up severely depressed that all of my time and energy spent in the gym went completely to waste simply because my parents didn’t give me the right combination of genes to grow to be more than 6’2”.  I would have grown bitter towards my parents and would be holding a 7-foot 2-inch, 280-pound grudge against them to this very day.

There’s a term for that: false hope.

Last year, I had a student who as a second grader had yet to experience much success in school.  She was very young for the grade level.  She was one of the smallest kids in the school.  And she didn’t exactly get a lot of support at home.  Needless to say, she could be a handful.

For the better part of the first three quarters of the school year, she and I didn’t see eye to eye.  She was at school to be social and didn’t show much of an interest in learning.  Like I said, she hadn’t really been successful at school.  And who likes to spend 6 ½ hours a day doing something they haven’t been very good at?

One day I spent a few minutes talking with this girl about what she wanted to do when she grew up.  It took her a little bit of time before she opened up, but when she did, she said she wanted to work at Burger King or Taco Bell.  Upon hearing this, I was impressed.  To give you some idea of the aspirations of some of my students from last year:  more than one told me they didn’t want to do anything when they grow up.  So for this girl to say she wanted to work at Burger King or Taco Bell was at least admitting to having some sort of goal in life.

At that time, I could have applauded her for having a dream and leaving it at that.  However, I pushed her to dream a little bit bigger.  I asked her what she thought about potentially being the manager or owner of a Burger King instead of just working there.  As I said this, I could see her processing it and a smile spread across her face.  She said that she thought that’d be pretty cool and that she would give me free burgers if I came to her Burger King.

I’d like to say that everything magically changed for her at that point, that she became a model student, and that she passed every standardized test she took from that point on.  The reality is, certain areas of school are most likely always going to be a struggle for her and that she isn’t going to have a perfect record of behavior.  But she did improve academically and behaviorally throughout the fourth quarter.  She now has a dream that is attainable and a hope that she just might actually achieve it.

I want nothing more than for her to cling to the hope that she has a real opportunity to achieve her dream.  It is that hope that will ultimately lead her to be more successful in school.  And it is that hope that will help her see the relevance in doing her best in school and on standardized tests.

I hope to one day walk into my former student’s Burger King and score some free burgers.  And when I do, perhaps we’ll have the opportunity to reminisce about the conversation we had that gave her some hope for her future.  And when we finish, I’ll let her know how proud of her I am and refer to her just as she had referred to me in the days following our pivotal conversation, as “my homey”. 

Who is someone in your life that has encouraged you and given you hope?