Partnering With Reality

Dear colleague,

Gardeners don’t make plants grow. Instead, they partner with the reality that plants do grow, especially when you give them proper soil, sunlight, water, nutrients, and so on.

But let’s be clear: the gardener does not control the plants.

The same is true of teachers and students.

When it comes to student motivation, manipulation doesn’t work. Coercion doesn't work. Carrots and sticks, same. These methods may produce students who look motivated — i.e., they do the work — but if they don't care about what they're doing, they aren't actually motivated at the heart/spirit/volitional level.

I’m not saying get rid of grades or consequences or rewards. Not necessarily.

But I’m for sure saying motivation is largely based on what students believe in a given context, for a given task. Cultivate key beliefs, and you'll create an environment in which the work of learning is a matter of course.

The more I work with the Five Key Beliefs in my own practice and with fellow teachers, the more I see how the beliefs describe reality. These just are real things in the very real hearts of our students. They produce work-conducive actions naturally. Because action follows belief. And beliefs are seeds in the heart of every student that, given the right conditions, will grow.

The path to more learning and less stress involves partnering with reality.

That's pretty much my lifelong mission as an educator and a person.

Teaching right beside you,

DSJR