What Underachieving Middle School Students Believe Motivates them to Learn

Chapter 1: The Challenge to Educate Everyone Chapter 2: A Review of Literature Chapter 3: Methods Chapter 4: The Results Chapter 5: Discussion      An Emerging Theory      A Gap in Schools        Enough Teachers?        Not Far Enough        Missing Motivators        Risks      Getting in the Way?      A Final Thought References Appendixes Biography

Missing Motivators "What motivating factors could teachers incorporate in their teaching, but don’t?" is another fair question. As mentioned above, students reported that they aren’t allowed to learn about what they were interested in. Further, students didn’t see how what they were learning was connected to their interests or was made interesting. Each of the six subjects in the two studies, and 58% of the seventh graders completing the aspirations survey, reported they are bored in school. Teachers admit to not knowing the participants’ interests. Many of the students have typical adolescent interests (socializing, sports, music, video games and computers). Teachers may struggle to find ways to connect those to academic content, but even remote connections, like using the names of bands or sports teams in classroom examples, were missing. There were few examples of teachers posing interesting problems or conundrums, or using mystery or fantasy to spark student interest. It is understandable how teachers might have difficulty building on middle school students’ typical adolescent interests in their teaching. Middle school students, however, also have intellectual interests. When middle school students act like the young people they are, it is sometimes hard for teachers to see their intellectual side. Teachers, who plan curriculum with students, using a curriculum negotiation model (Brodhagen, Weilbacher, & Beane, 1992; Muir, 1998b; Alexander, 1995; Nesin & Lounsbury, 1999) based on students’ questions and concerns about themselves and the world they live in, do see students’ intellectual interests. The students have very mature, sophisticated, and complex questions, including the following (Brodhagen, Weilbacher, & Beane, 1992; Muir, 1998b; Alexander, 1995): What will my future be like? What mistakes will I make? How will I correct them? What will happen to the world (greenhouse effect, ozone, air pollution, rain forests, etc.)? Why are there rich and poor people? Why do we use money for wars and not for poor people? Why are famous people famous and we are not famous? Will there ever be complete peace? Why do people have to be mean to others to feel good about themselves? Will the economy improve? Will censorship get out of control? How did the world form? What goes through the minds of Hitler, Hussein, and other anti-peace demonstrators? Will we ever get a president that knows what he's (she's) doing? Will we have to live under water or on the moon or another planet? How will my education (or lack of it) affect my life? Some educators have reflected on student intellectual interests and how elusive it can seem to uncover them. Alexander (1995, p. 20) wrote "Beane would never ask students, ‘What do you want to study?’ Themes are selected through a series of ‘back-door’ questions: ‘What things concern you personally?’ ‘What are your concerns with the world around you?’ ‘How does the world affect you?’" I had a similar response when I reflected on the curriculum negotiation process: Perhaps, as a teacher, I had simply not asked my students the right questions. Students often separate what they are truly curious about from the more school-based idea of what they want to "learn." Or maybe "What do you want to learn about?" is much too direct and ignores the subtle and ubiquitous nature of learning. The longer process of prodding for questions and searching out themes seems to have brought them closer to their natural curiosities and therefore helped them pursue topics of greater natural interest to them. (Muir, 1998b, p. 16) Aligning teaching with student interests is not the only missing motivator. For the student participants in this study and the pilot, how school content is useful or matches student goals is another missing motivator. Mrs. Jacques suggests that the students don’t see any value in what they are learning, and the students largely agree. Most of the examples of how students thought teachers tried to show them knowledge was useful were fairly trivial, often simply making the comment that you would need to know this if you wanted to go into such and such a profession. Maybe teachers don’t have other models of how to show students learning can be meaningful. Several of the students had faith that what they were studying would help them in the future, but they weren’t sure how it would help them, and they didn’t think it was work they would actually have to do in the real world. Cathy and Ben said school was preparing them for the future by teaching them patience, perhaps because of the time they spend waiting to learn something of interest to them.

Web site created by Mike Muir Send questions or comments to wilder@somtel.com Last updated April 25, 2001

Mike Muir Assistant Professor of Education University of Maine at Farmington 104 Main Street Farmington, ME 04938 207.778.7179 wilder@somtel.com http://violet.umf.maine.edu/~mmuir