Motivation
It is quite an intimidating word sometimes. How do you provide motivation? I don’t mean the “do it or else” kind of motivation. I am talking about the internal motivation that causes one to move forward on a project or assignment without someone else getting involved or reminding.
Motivation comes from within. While I like to think that I have some influence over it, I don’t. My middle schoolers (I kind of feel like I have two now that the school year is almost over and Miss L will officially be a 6th grader shortly) are independent thinkers, as they should be. They have hopes and desires and wills and frustrations that are all their own. They will do what I ask them to because it is right to do what your mother says but that isn’t really motivation, is it?
I have been pondering this motivation thing for a while, trying to find the right balance of curriculum choices made by me and made by the student. It is difficult. Do I push math in a day when their motivation has been to work diligently on history for 3 hours? Do I make the student add more to a research paper when she has written two full pages on research that she did that all-in-all took only 30 minutes from start to finish but is well-written and interesting to her? Do I have a child re-do work that is substandard in handwriting but excellent in content?
Where do you push and where do you give grace and allow for it not to be a high quality project?
Boy, do I wish I knew the answer to this!
What do I actually do? I figure it out from day to day and from week to week. This last week, I asked for more on that research but I didn’t push the math issue. Why each of those? Well, if you saw the concentration and intensity with which the history project was being pursued, there was a deep interest that was being fed. I don’t want to mess with that. Math will still be there later and she will work at it when I do choose to insist.
But the research, I felt like she needed more of a challenge. So the next day, I took that research project that I had invisioned being most of a week’s worth of writing and added a different element to the research, a different perspective and had her do some more. Of course, she loved it, spent a good bit of time reading through the websites I pulled up for her, and then wrote double the amount requested. So, she has now breezed through the assignments I expected to take two weeks in two days. What next? Well, her internal motivation is good to get it done so I guess we will just feed it more with a new research project. I have some ideas . . .
All of this rambling is to say, I think if I can continue to find a few ideas that spark an independent motivation, an internal motivation, in at least a single subject area, then we are on the right road. Right now, we have that mix going. I wish we could expand it and we’ll keep trying but for now, I will be happy with what is working and deal with that which is not getting done.
At Home.
This week’s Middle School Monday post is also serving as last week’s Blogging Through The Alphabet post since last week was incredibly busy.
Please visit A Net In Time and Hopkins Homeschool and link up your ABC posts.
Tagged: ABC blogging, Middle School
At Home 
[…] I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q R S T U V W X Y […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R S T U V W X Y […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]
[…] go? I – Ice Cream J – Just Sit Still K – Kids Can L – Leadership through Lads to Leaders M – Motivation N – Nature Research O – Our God, He Is Alive P – Prepared Q – Quizlet R – Recital […]