The Secret of Motivation and Inspiration- Kristina Mojica

7.  April 28th:  The Secret of Motivation and Inspiration pp. 111-129

Effective teachers do not bring their personal problems into their classrooms.  They just act as if everything is OK – even when it might not be.  If you were counseling beginning teachers, what suggestions from the chapter do you feel are the most relevant in guiding these teachers? What are the reasons for your thinking?

If I were mentoring a beginning teacher on keeping personal problems out of the work place, I would definitely suggest keeping the students in mind when he or she is having a bad day. Not only is a negative attitude contagious, but it also hinders students from doing what they are meant to do at school: learn. I have seen this first hand. During my first block of the day, I was tired and not enthusiastic about my lesson. In response, my students were not engaged or excited about what we were doing. I took a few minutes to reflect before my next block class. I knew I wasn't enthusiastic; so, I changed my attitude. I acted excited and crazy (in a good way!) about what I was teaching, and the results were tremendous: students were very engaged and excited about what was going on. They were even asking a multitude of questions to further their understanding. 

My other big piece of advice is for teachers to remember the profession they went into. You are TEACHING. You are not sitting in an office by yourself, where you have the luxury of moping around if you are having a bad day. Moreover, you are, or should be, literally increasing the knowledge of students in your class and acting as an advocate and role model to those students. As teachers, it is true that we do not have the luxury of having a bad day. I really liked the one quotation from the teacher who stated, "I often remind myself that teachers don't have the luxury of having a bad day. Neither do brain surgeons, thank goodness!" Our work is so important, and ultimately the students lose out if we choose a negative attitude while teaching. 

The Secret of Attitude - Kristina Mojica

One point that the authors make is that negative teachers rarely see that quality in themselves.  If you were to ask your principal or colleagues about your attitude what do you think they would say?  No matter how positive our attitude, we can always reflect on how we might improve.  Utilizing the secrets shared in this chapter, what improvements might you consider making in the future?


If I were to ask my principal or colleagues about my attitude, I believe they would say I have a very energetic, engaging, and bubbly personality. I try my hardest to keep positive in the workplace, especially around students and co workers. Doing so definitely presents challenges along the way, because, like anyone else, I have bad days where things at home are on my mind. However, I found it is easiest just to leave those things at the door and keep my positive attitude at work. This way, I enjoy work more and get a break from the things that are weighing on my mind. Most of the time this approach works, but every day is not perfect. With the stressors of student teaching, classes, and work, sometimes my fatigue gets the best of me. I usually notice when this happens because I can tell my students are bored and uninterested with my lesson. 

Some improvements I may consider making in the future in terms of my attitude at work is definitely controlling myself in the teacher's lounge, which proves to be a huge obstacle at times. Sitting there with other teachers, it is easy to become influenced with negative attitudes about the school, students, administration, etc, especially if you are new and trying to "fit in". However, at the end of the day, it is imperative to remember who you are and what your main job is, and that is to be a positive role model and advocate for the children  you are teaching. Participating in negative conversations is not a behavior you would want your students to have, so why would it be acceptable to display that behavior yourself? Students learn best from teachers who are happy and excited to teach. 

Jenny Yurky- The Secret of Motivation and Inspiration

I think that one of the most useful tips from this chapter is to act excited and motivated.  I think that this is important for two reasons.  The first is that if you act excited about what you are teaching, your students are much more likely to also be excited about what you are teaching.  If you show your students that you wish you were doing something other than teaching them, they will pick up on it and you will not have a successful lesson.  The second reason why this is important is because if you act like you are excited, you may actually become excited.  At the summer camp I worked at we would call this “Fake it till you make it.”

Another tip that I found important from this chapter is the suggestion to find ways to keep yourself motivated and inspired.  As we approach the end of the semester and the end of the student teaching experience, it is sometimes difficult to motivate yourself and to have those moments of inspiration where you think “this is going to be an awesome lesson!”.  At this point the end is in sight and you start to look forward to your future and your own classroom.  Sometimes I find myself thinking that I just have to get through these last few weeks.  However, these thoughts don’t stay around too long.  I remind myself that instead of saying I only have to go for three more weeks; I say I only get to go for three more weeks.  These last few weeks will be the last time that I get to work with these kids and the last time that I will have the opportunity to teach them and help them grow.  This is always a good motivator for me.

I realize that the two points I mentioned both focus on the teacher.  The most important part of teaching is the students’ learning.  As a teacher, your roll is to be an effective facilitator of learning.  Being (or acting) excited and motivated will help you to be an effective facilitator of learning and will lead to the success of your students.

Secret of Motivation and Inspiration - Kate Martin

I feel like it is very important to know your students on a more personal level and I try to learn at least one thing about each student in my class. Some students are easier to connect with than others, but every student has the right to feel valued in your classroom. I have found it very easy to build a good relationship with unmotivated female students, especially being a female teacher. Something as simple as complimenting a hair cut/style, outfit, nail polish, or writing/drawings is a huge motivator. Sometimes it just takes an interest and willingness to talk to them that will improve behavior. For example, I had this really unmotivated girl in my first placement. It was impossible to get her to do anything, and she genuinely thought she was stupid despite my protests. When doing a review where students independently answered cumulative questions, I was checking on her progress. She was on a question about volume, and I simply asked where she’d heard the word before. She replied “ I don’t know, like volume stuff for your hair,” and I saw my opportunity to connect with her. I told her that was exactly right, and to explain to me what volumizing conditioner is supposed to do for your hair. She was a little hesitant, sensing that it didn’t really relate to science but said “it makes your hair bigger and stuff.” I agreed with her and said that volume is just how much space something takes up, so when you volumize your hair, you’re making it bigger to take up more space. Ever since then, she was a perfect student. She was completing several activities a day when it had originally been difficult for her to complete anything. With everything she finished, she brought to me for validation. I praised her on everything she turned in and found one thing I liked about each project. I was amazed at how much better she acted and how much more motivated she was to perform.

It is also important to catch students doing things correctly and praise them for the behavior you want them to repeat. I have noticed that saying “I’m glad you all got out your bell ringer papers so quickly” was a much more effective way to start class than saying “You all need to hurry up and get out your papers, the bell rang.” The attitude and mood of the teacher dictates how the class will run.  Teachers need to be excited about what they’re teaching (or pretend to be) and continue to exhibit positive behaviors to benefit their classrooms. It’s also important to emphasize student success that is relevant for each student. When monitoring progress of students (even if they are working at a slower pace than I expect) I’ll compliment them on their progress and then set a goal for them. For example, I’d walk around to see how far they were getting with an in class math practice set and say “wow, you’re moving right along! You’re already on 3! By the time I come back around I want to see if you can get to number 6.” This seems to be a good way to motivate them, because they are almost always farther than I had expected them to be. It’s funny that in the first 10 minutes they can only get 3 done when they’re unmotivated. Once complimented, they are able to complete 4 in 5 minutes because they become motivated to perform. 

The secret of motivation and inspiration- Kaytlin Roser

Motivating middle school aged students is very difficult seems to be a very challenging for a teacher. You have to really know your students and what they are interested in. It helps knowing their favorite kinds of music and tv shows also so you can find something somewhat related to that and turn into something educational.

I mostly work with students who have reading comprehension and fluency difficulties and getting them to read and enjoy reading is a very difficult task. We tend to avoid the things we are not good at, and my students really try to avoid reading because it is so hard for them. Finding something students like to read about helps with their motivation. For instance, there is a boy in my reading intervention class who loves anything that has to do with building cars and other vehicles, so my teacher ordered a magazine subscription about cars and he was very interested in reading the articles in there. He was so interested that he wanted to read to actually read and practice his fluency and comprehension.

Another way to motivate students is to get them to teach you something they are good at in school. You really know you have mastered something when you can teach it to someone else. A student I work with one-on-one with fluency skills and math enrichment really gets frustrated and shuts down easily when he is having trouble with reading. I can relate to his frustration when it comes to math, but it turns out math is his strength. He is learning about multiplying and factoring trinomials and I had to be honest with him, I did not understand it. So, my teacher and I had him teach us how to do it because he thought it was "really easy". I think it made him feel good about himself that he knew he was good at something that others have a hard time with.

The Secret of Motivation and Inspiration-Samantha Self

This secret really made me reflect on my time in field experience and my current placement. I had some students during field placement that seemed really unmotivated. They refused to do work and would sleep during class, and honestly, their teachers did not seem to care. I was in an environment completely different than anything I had every experienced and really did not even know how to approach the situation. One student complimented me on my outfit, and I decided that maybe they aren't so different than I am. We talked about clothes for a little while during lunch, and she really opened my eyes to the lives that some of the students were living.

One part of the section that really made me think was the story about the boy with the broken leg. The teacher didn't know where he was coming from or really much of anything about him. I knew absolutely nothing about this girl except that she liked my clothes and she was usually in trouble for fighting. During our conversation, she let me know that one student in the class was sleeping because he had to take care of his infant siblings at night. Another student in the class was tardy every day because he had to walk his younger brother to school in the morning so nothing happened to him. I never asked her for any of the information that she was sharing with me, but I quickly learned she just wanted someone to listen to her. These students were her family, and she didn't want them to fall behind. I'm not exactly sure how to effectively teach these students, but what initially appeared as unmotivated and lazy students were the exact opposite. So  much of them was taken up outside of school that some days they just were not able to focus on school.

Another part of the section that I really liked was the quote about we can all teach the Valedictorian. I loved this quote because it is exactly why I decided to teach Special Education. I don't want the Valedictorian. I don't want the student who soaks up everything like a sponge. I want the student who "just might survive because of us." I love seeing the light bulb go on when a student finally grasps a concept, and I love the challenge of finding a third or fourth way of teaching something. I feel like there is a milestone or a reason to celebrate every single day in Special Education that would just be another day or another standard in the regular classroom.

The Secret of Motivation and Inspiration- Kamie Crum

After reading this chapter it talked about a lot of things I try to bring into my classroom.  For instance, praise, motivations, and building a good rapport with each student in my classroom.  Every placement I get asked who my favorite student, and I always reply in the same way, "Every student is my favorite. There is something special about every single one of you that I love."  Then you hear the student run around and tell everyone and you see that sparkle in their eyes knowing that you truly do care.
Another thing that stuck out in this chapter was Part 1- How to make Your Excitement Their Excitement.  There was a quote in this section that really touched me and I believe that this is 100% accurate.  " As a teacher, my mood sets the weather in the classroom each day.  My tone establishes the tone for the entire class.  If I look out at my students and see an uninspired group, my next glance in in the mirror.  Though its not always easy, I know that in order to motivate and inspire my students, I have to be motivated and inspired first.  So, on those days when I'm not feeling so motivated and enthusiastic, I just pretend to be.  My students do not know the difference!" If you come into the classroom upset over something that happened you can bring the mood down in the class and if you are in an emotional support classroom like I am now or any classroom with multiple problems going on then that can effect how students behave.  But by making the classroom a fun and warm environment students feel better and you can see they want to achieve. 
Like I  said I try to build a good rapport with every student in my classroom.  That is not easy with some students but that is my goal going into the classroom.  I feel that when you know your students you not only know how they learn but maybe you can understand why a certain behavior is going on in the classroom based on something that happened at home or school.  Also it builds trust between you and your students.  Right now I have talked and encountered any a variety of conversations with my students.  I am teaching social skills and I share my experiences with them and allow them to share theirs.  Since I have that rapport with them, I feel as if the students feel comfortable with me to share about their lives and that is wonderful!  I also try to say something positive to each student every day.  I went to a presentation at Edinboro and the presenter said something that really stuck with me.  For every negative thing you say to someone they need 10 positive comments to make them feel better.  With some of the home life that these students have, why would they want to keep hearing negative things.  That is when the behavior starts to get worse.  Therefore by praising the students and saying positive comments to them, that may be the only thing that actually impacts their lives.  Students need to feel as ease and safe in your classroom because some students see you more than their own parents therefore you are making a huge impact in their lives and you might not even realize it.
Part 5 talks about the use of rewards appropriately.  In the Emotional Support classroom I am student teaching in, there is a lot of behavior problems.  So after about two weeks of observing this behavior I decided that I needed to incorporate an incentive jar for positive behavior.  Students see that jar and know what they need to do to reach the intended goal.  I have really seen a change of behavior in some students because they want that incentive.  It is not based on individual behavior but rather the entire class.  The students also know that they get three strikes and then they are out and they do not get beans for that class.  The three strikes you are out system helps students to realize that it is not based solely on individual behavior and can not blame one specific student for not getting beans for the class period.