Title: Motivating Young Adolescents - Educational Leadership
Headings: Motivating Young Adolescents
Motivating Young Adolescents
Carrots and sticks won't make middle schoolers learn. These approaches will.
1. Adopt two mind-sets.
2. Empathize—and build trust.
3. Remember where they are.
4. Give descriptive feedback.
5. Teach the way the mind learns.
6. Tell stories and spark curiosity.
A Systematic Effort
Top 12 Demotivators
Endnotes
KEYWORDS
Requesting Permission

Content: Many middle school teachers actually know things they can do to motivate their students. But substitute the word manipulate for motivate in the previous sentence, and what at first sounded reasonable now seems disturbing. None of us wants to manipulate students. Every day, however, we practice the art of persuasion, convincing students that our subjects are worth their time and energy. This persuasion is tricky because of the dance between middle schoolers' lingering childlike curiosity and their mounting distractions: peers, sex, risk taking, pop stars, and keeping track of body parts in time and space. Manipulation is very different from motivation, however. Manipulation involves one person doing something to someone else in order to control his or her actions or attitude. Conversely, motivation comes from within. It's a welling desire to invest oneself in a topic, person, or activity.