Classroom Strategies to Support Student's Self-Care and Renewal - Page 2 of 13

Educators spend untold hours pouring over learning theory and motivational techniques to try to make learning as inviting as possible. The goal of all this effort is to affect the willingness of students to engage in the learning process, to inspire and motivate students. Current research, however, is telling us a different story. There is much evidence to suggest that, to a great extent, students are self-motivated, especially as they get older and make more individual choices.

If the learning process is enjoyable and rewarding, if they can see any personal benefit in the learning, and if they perceive that what they are being taught has value in real life outside of school, they will remain motivated to learn.

One very noted researcher/educator, Art Combs, related an incident where he asked a class of teachers-in-training, "Why are students are so uninvolved?" Here are some of the responses he got:

• Nobody cares.
• Teachers and students are enemies. It's "us and them."
• Teachers are too concerned about details, details, details.
• Everyone worries about grades as though they really mattered!
• We can't question anything.
• It seems like the only good ideas are the old ones--what's in the books.
• The things worth getting committed to don't get you ahead in school!