Waiting on Stars (Or You’ve Never Met a Student that Wants to be Demotivated in School)

Here's a thing I don't think we think about enough:

Your students WANT to be motivated.

This is something fundamental to human beings.

So, this is what I contend: you’ve never met a student who set out to become demotivated in school.

Every. One. Of your students, down in the roots of their will, desires to desire to learn.

That word desire is important to contemplate.

It's from the Latin desirare, with De connoting from within, deep down and sidere meaning “from the stars.”

That’s a weird word, right?

Etymologists surmise that, originally, the word meant something like, “to await what the stars will bring.”

To await what the stars will bring?

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang.

That's deep.

So listen: look out on your classroom tomorrow, and see deep in those eyes an unyielding desire to desire to learn.

See an awaiting what the stars will bring.

Because that's what's there.