Tackling the Motivation Crisis

How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems

Mike Anderson

• Publisher: ASCD
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781416630357
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Métodos de enseñanza de la educación

Packed with practical strategies you can use to create a culture of self-motivation in your school!

Teachers use traditional incentive and reward systems with the best of intentions. We're trying to support students' positive behavior and learning. We're hoping to motivate and inspire students to work hard and do well in school. If everyone behaves, we'll have a pizza party. The more books you read, the more stickers you'll receive. On the surface, these systems seem to make sense. They may even seem to work. But in the long term, they do not foster intrinsic motivation or a love or learning. In fact, they often have the opposite effect.

In Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems, award-winning educator and best-selling author Mike Anderson explains* The damage done by extrinsic motivation systems and why they are so hard for us to give up.
* What intrinsic motivation looks like and the six high-impact motivators—autonomy, belonging, competence, purpose, fun, and curiosity—that foster it.
* How to teach the self-management and self-motivation skills that can make a difference for kids.
* How to use intrinsic motivation in curricula and instructional strategies, feedback and assessment, and discipline and classroom management.

Ultimately, our job as teachers is not to motivate our students. It's to make sure that our classrooms and schools are places that inspire their intrinsic motivation and allow it to flourish. Anderson shows how you can better do that right away—no matter what grade level or subject area you teach.

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Chapter 1

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A Motivation Crisis

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We have a motivation crisis in our schools.

Across the United States, far too many kids don't want to do schoolwork. You see it in their tired and listless expressions in class. You hear it from parents who struggle to get them to do homework. Teachers often lament, "These kids just don't want to do anything! They're so unmotivated!" In fact, as I work in schools across the United States, this is the most often-voiced frustration I hear from teachers, especially in upper grades: "Kids today just don't care about school." According to a 2014 Gallup poll of more than 800,000 students, nearly half (47 percent) reported being either not engaged or actively disengaged in school (Collier, 2015). Another survey conducted that same year, this one by Education Week, asked teachers and administrators about student motivation, and only 40 percent of those surveyed believed their students were "highly engaged and motivated" (Collier, 2015). These are just a couple of such surveys that seem to reveal how far too many children don't seem motivated or invested in their schoolwork.

Chances are, you have your own experiences that confirm this. Perhaps at home, your own children seem bored or detached from learning in school. You might have had this experience when you were a kid. I certainly did. And when you look at the students in your classroom, though some of them are motivated and excited to learn, you can probably immediately picture the ones who aren't. They sit with blank stares, peeking at their phones whenever your back is turned. They don't turn in work, and when they do, it seems as if they've done the least amount possible. Or they disrupt by agitating other kids in class who are ready and eager to learn. They're the ones that keep you up at night.

There are obvious and clear correlations between motivation and achievement. In a different Gallup poll, this one conducted in 2016, students who were actively disengaged are nine times more likely to say they get bad grades, twice as likely to say they miss days of school, and more than seven times more likely to say they feel discouraged about the future as compared with students who say they are engaged. What's especially troubling is that motivation for learning seems to drop as students get older. Although 74 percent of 5th graders report being engaged, 18 percent as not engaged, and only 8 percent as actively disengaged, by the time students are well into high school, about one-third of students say they are engaged while two-thirds are either not engaged or actively disengaged (Calderon & Yu, 2017).

Although this certainly isn't a new phenomenon, the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to make things worse. As schools across the globe shut down and learning moved online, even more students seemed to struggle with engagement. According to a survey of 1,150 district leaders, principals, and teachers conducted by the EdWeek Research Center, by the end of 2019–2020 school year, teachers' top challenge was students not even logging in for school or interacting with them at all. A whopping 66 percent of respondents cited this as a major challenge (Kurtz, 2020). In a different survey, this one taken by 20,438 students in 166 public schools across nine states during May and June of 2020, we again see how differences in motivation played out when learning moved home during the COVID-19 crisis. Fifty-seven percent of 5th graders said they could motivate themselves to do schoolwork while just over one-quarter of high school seniors could do so (YouthTruth Student Survey, 2020).

So there's no doubt we have a motivation crisis, but I'm actually not convinced it's as bleak as (or as seemingly impossible to tackle as) the data I've just cited suggest. Although there's no doubt that these surveys and studies reveal a disheartening lack of motivation for and engagement with schoolwork, does this mean that our students are truly unmotivated? Or is it more accurate to say that they're unmotivated to do the work we're giving them (and the way in which we're framing it)? It's very possible that we have highly motivated students who display low motivation for schoolwork. Resisting schoolwork that doesn't feel relevant, interesting, or fun might actually be a sign that students haven't become overly compliant.

My son is a perfect example. I remember one afternoon when he was in high school, he was not doing his assigned physics homework. Instead, he was building an air cannon (made from PVC pipe, a bicycle pump, and an irrigation valve) that could fire a foam dart over the roof of our house. He spent hours perfecting the cannon until the dart fired so high you couldn't see it anymore. So while he was blowing off his physics homework, he was engaging in a hands-on physics project. He was highly motivated—just not to do the work his teacher assigned.

The fact that motivation for schoolwork seems to drop as students get older is especially a problem because motivation is one of the most highly valued attributes of employees in our new economy. If you want to conduct an interesting experiment, try an internet search for "skills wanted in the workplace" (or some variation of that). Check out the first few resources that come up and scan for words such as initiative, motivational skills, strong work values, strong work ethic, self-management, and commitment. Businesses, for the most part, are not looking for people who want to punch in, punch out, and do the least amount required of them. They're looking for people who are self-motivated. They also don't want someone who needs constant hand-holding and managing—they want people who can manage themselves. I was speaking at an event for parents at a wealthy private school in Los Angeles. The talk was about social-emotional learning (SEL) skills needed for effective learning and was part of the school's effort to help parents understand the need for the teaching of SEL skills as a part of daily academics. I asked for a show of hands: "How many of you help with the hiring process—at least in some form—at the businesses where you work?" Nearly all of the hands went up. "And are you looking to hire people who need to be managed and motivated, or are you looking for people who are self-motivated and self-managing?" The consensus was clear. No one wants to hire someone who will need constant supervision or external motivation.

And yet, what does it typically take to be good at school? Usually, it means that students are really good at doing what they're told. They complete assignments and turn them in on time—to the specifications of the teacher. They learn the content that is required as determined by the curriculum. They follow the rules set by the teacher or school. In short, they're compliant. Although they are successful, according to the ways we often measure success in schools, these are also students we should worry about. They seem motivated, but they're not really self-motivated. They are eager to get the grades they (or their parents) want, but they don't seem interested in the learning itself. "Is this graded?" is their way of saying, "Should I care about this?" If the answer is yes, they want to know exactly what they have to do to get the grade they want—which can be really hard when an assignment involves creativity, complex reasoning, or other high-level thinking. So we send them confusing messages like "Of course the grade is important, but don't care about it too much. I also want you to be curious and excited about the learning!" After all, we don't really want kids who are grade-grubbers, do we? Don't we want students who are driven from within when it comes to their work and learning? Remember the YouthTruth survey, which showed how kids struggled with motivation when learning went remote during spring of 2020? In the summary of the survey results, there are representative comments that reflect students' most common sentiments based on the number and type of keywords. They had one representative comment under the heading Motivation:

Finding the motivation to do schoolwork was the most difficult challenge I found during distance learning. In a classroom, most of the time, you are forced to work on assignments either as a class or in a small group of friends. At home, you have to push yourself to be productive. Lacking motivation caused me to dramatically fall behind.

These compliant kids—students who are good at playing the school game but aren't really developing interests or gaining skills in self-management and self-motivation—should also worry us. Being compliant is no longer a highly sought-after attribute in the world of work.

They don't often rise to the top of our worry-about list, though, because the ones who aren't compliant occupy so much of our time and energy. These students have a tough row to hoe. They become labeled as problems or troublemakers, and their journeys through school are rough. In a stunning and incisive rebuke of the status quo in schools, educator and author Carla Shalaby forces us to challenge this norm in schools: "In school we generally identify the most pleasant, most compliant children as our leaders. But if being a leader means doing exactly as one is told, we should wonder what it means to be a follower" (2017, p. xviii). Instead, she encourages us to view troublemakers as "canaries in coal mines," children who warn us of conditions that might be unhealthy. They are placed in punitive time-outs or get removed from classrooms for moving too much or talking too much. They lose valuable learning time and are sent a clear message: "You don't belong here." Not surprisingly, they often then struggle more academically. There are also children who come to school and struggle academically, and as they too pick up messages that they aren't good enough and that they don't belong (as they're separated from peers to receive "special" instruction and given failing grades for poor work), many of them begin to act out. Feeling frustrated and stupid and isolated, they fight back, becoming disruptive and exerting energy to avoid work at all costs. This is the circular nature of behavior and academic challenges. One begets the other. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that as students experience more school, many of them become less and less engaged.

It seems like it shouldn't be this way, though, doesn't it? Can't we imagine it happening a different way? Can't we imagine kids getting more fired up and passionate about learning the more school they experience? That being in buildings and online learning spaces dedicated to learning, surrounded by adults who are excited to facilitate learning, they would get more turned on to learning, not less? Can't we imagine that, as content gets more complex, it could get more interesting, not less? That as kids get older, they develop more skills of self-management and self-motivation?

This may feel especially perplexing as we consider how much time, how much energy, and how many resources we use trying to motivate students' academic work and behavior. Grades are just one example of the myriad of motivational tools and strategies we use in schools: Sticker and star reward systems, student of the week/month programs, pizza for reading in the summer, good citizenship awards, marbles, and gems in jars are but a few more. These token economy systems—if you do x, then you get y (a sticker, grade, point, etc.)—are so widely used that it's hard to find schools where they aren't used in some capacity in all parts of the United States, in wealthy districts and poor ones; in rural, urban, and suburban ones; in private, independent, and public schools; in preschools and high schools.

With all of these systems designed to motivate students and manage their behavior, shouldn't we see kids getting more engaged and excited about school, not less, as they get older? If these systems work as we think they do, shouldn't motivation be going up and behavior be getting better as kids experience more of them?

What if these systems are having the reverse of their intended effect? What if they're making students less motivated instead of more? I used one of these token economy systems early in my career, and I got to experience firsthand both why they are so alluring and how they can backfire.

My Experience with Incentive Systems: Chips for Pizza

I was so proud of my classroom management system at the beginning of my first year of teaching. Students in my class sat in pods of four desks pulled together. Each of these groups was like a mini-team, and each pod had a small plastic butter tub (cleaned, of course). I walked around with a pocketful of small purple cardboard disks that we called chips. When students were doing what they should—cooperating, working hard, sharing materials, and so on—I might pass by and toss a couple of chips into their container. Individual students could also gain chips for their team by focusing well, working hard, asking a good question, or doing a kind deed. Students could lose them, too. If a group was quarreling or getting off task, I might come by and remove a chip or two. If a student said something mean or forgot to bring in their homework, they might also lose a chip for their group. The goal for the groups was to get to 75 chips. If they could accomplish this, I would take the group out for a pizza lunch at the family-owned Italian restaurant right next to the school.

Can you imagine how excited my students were when I first introduced this system? They cheered and clapped at the idea of going out for pizza for lunch. The system worked brilliantly—at first. As I walked around the classroom, kids would straighten up in their chairs, sometimes even folding their hands and batting their eyelashes playfully. When I tossed chips into the dishes, kids beamed, often smiling at each other and basking in their success. If a group was getting off task, all I had to do was catch someone's eye and pat my pocket or start to move in their direction, and they'd get back on track. When groups started accumulating enough chips for a pizza lunch, we had a blast. Eating lunch together and sitting in a booth at a family restaurant felt so exciting, and it was such a wonderful way to build relationships with them and between them.

After a while, though, some elements of the systems started to trouble me. Some students started to get sneaky. I'd be walking around the room, and I'd hear someone warn their tablemates in a frantic whisper, "Shhh! He's coming!" Table groups started accusing each other of chip theft: "Hey! We counted our chips before recess, and we had 57. Now we only have 38! I think Laura's table took some of ours!" Kids also started to gang up on individuals at their tables—kids who already struggled. "Billy?! You didn't do your homework again?! Great! Now we're never going to get pizza!" To be honest, this was part of the idea of the system. I had wanted kids to hold each other accountable, but when I heard this negative peer pressure actually happening, I didn't like the feeling of it. Neither did Billy. I started to get the sense that he (and a few others) sometimes intentionally sabotaged a group by misbehaving on purpose—just to get them mad.

There were other problems. I was good at remembering the chips early in the year, but as the year got going, I sometimes forgot. Kids reminded me, "Mr. A.? Don't we get some chips? We were working really well." Some tables who struggled to get enough chips for pizza just gave up. They decided the effort wasn't worth the work, and then their motivation and behavior seemed to get worse. After all, if the goal was to get pizza, and they had decided the pizza didn't matter enough, why bother trying?

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the system was that it didn't mesh with my beliefs about teaching and learning or the positive goals I had for my students. I wanted my students to be kind and respectful because that was how we would form a safe and vibrant learning community, not because they wanted pizza. I wanted them to work hard and engage in learning because they were curious and self-motivated, not because they were being motivated by me. I believed that school and learning should be inherently interesting, but what did it mean if I thought my students needed to look forward to pizza to be interested in school?

These systems of extrinsic motivation and management are so ubiquitous that they go unquestioned and unchallenged in many places, but as you'll see in the next chapter, my experience isn't unique. These systems often have short-term payoffs with long-term consequences.

Boost Student Motivation: Three Action Steps

So here we are, stuck in a vicious cycle of kids experiencing systems and strategies of motivation that make things worse. This makes them appear less motivated, so we double down and try even harder to motivate them—which, again, just makes it worse. It's time to break the cycle. It's time to stop trying to motivate our students and instead create school experiences that allow students to be self-motivated. That's what this book is all about. In the pages that follow, you will learn the three key steps we need to take to make this happen.

Step 1: Stop Incentivizing Students

As you'll see in Chapters 2 and 3, the more time and energy we spend trying to motivate our students' learning and behavior through extrinsic means—pizza parties, gem jars, behavior charts, traditional grading systems, teacher-pleasing praise, and other such incentive systems—the less intrinsic motivation they will have. We need to stop using these systems.

Step 2: Tap into Students' Intrinsic Motivators

The second step is deceptively simple. We need to make sure students' academic work is compelling and interesting enough that they will want to do it. Chapter 4 illustrates how we can activate student learning through six intrinsic motivators. These are motivators that all students walk into school with, and we can embed them in any lesson, activity, project, or unit.

Step 3: Teach Students Skills of Self-Management

Although getting rid of incentive systems and tapping into students' intrinsic motivators will help students become more self-motivated, those two things aren't enough. Even the most self-motivated learners have struggles. Even the most interesting project gets boring at times. Students need to know how to push through challenges, manage frustration, and overcome being overwhelmed. In Chapter 5, you will explore a wide array of strategies to teach to students so they can become more skilled at self-management, which will help them follow through on their self-motivation.

Chapters 6, 7, and 8 will help you see how this looks in action in three practical realms of school: curricula and instruction (Chapter 6), feedback and assessment (Chapter 7), and discipline and classroom management (Chapter 8). You'll gain a wide variety of practical examples, concrete strategies, and ideas to use that will help you integrate many of the ideas presented in Chapters 2–5.

There is no one "right" way to shift from systems of extrinsic motivation to ones of intrinsic motivation, so in Chapter 9, you'll learn several important ideas and strategies to try. You'll hear ho...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Praise for Tackling the Motivation Crisis
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. A Motivation Crisis
• Chapter 2. What's Wrong with Incentives
• Chapter 3. Why It Is So Hard to Let Go of Extrinsic Motivation
• Chapter 4. Understanding Intrinsic Motivation
• Chapter 5. Teaching Self-Motivation and Self-Management
• Chapter 6. Curricula and Instructional Strategies
• Chapter 7. Feedback and Assessment
• Chapter 8. Discipline and Classroom Management
• Chapter 9. Moving Away from Incentive Systems
• References
• About the Author
• Related ASCD Resources
• Study Guide
• Copyright