I once worked for an amazing administrator named John Blazek. \u00a0Mr. B. was a passionate school leader who managed his people with respect and dignity. \u00a0He wasn\u2019t perfect. \u00a0Nobody is. \u00a0But he fostered an environment that made it very easy for me to love my job, and that is no small thing.<\/p>\n
I have come to understand that while the media is content to report on test scores there are far more important statistics we should be talking about. \u00a0Mr. B. once said that the most important statistics we should talk about when comparing schools are the attendance rates for both students and teachers. \u00a0Let\u2019s face it, if neither population is showing up on a regular basis, what good is it to talk about test scores?<\/p>\n
Teacher attendance is something that came up, among other things, in the now infamous documentary\u00a0Waiting for Superman<\/em>. \u00a0The premise on this matter in the film is\u00a0in many cases of \u201cfailing schools\u201d teachers are\u00a0leaving a good percentage of the instruction to substitute or temporary teachers while calling in sick or taking personal leave. \u00a0I am not trying to appear critical of teachers who accept teaching\u00a0positions in high-demand districts. \u00a0The work of a classroom teacher is beyond challenging and it is amplified a great deal in the urban districts discussed in\u00a0Superman<\/em>. \u00a0However, I think a more productive conversation on this matter should be related to how we in the profession address teacher motivation. \u00a0What can we do to improve the conditions of our classrooms so that not only students are motivated to attend, but we are too?<\/p>\n Very early in my career a former teacher told me that he left the profession because he could do little about the outside influences that finally made his job unbearable. \u00a0He cited low participation, lax application of\u00a0discipline building-wide on the part of the administration, and limited parental involvement as the conditions that ultimately led to his burnout and departure from the classroom. \u00a0As this former teacher shared his experience with me I didn\u2019t hear relief in his voice, as if to say, \u201cAnd I so happy I no longer have to deal with any of that anymore\u2026\u201d \u00a0Instead all I heard was bitterness and regret. And I wondered at that point in my career how much control we truly have over our own motivation. \u00a0Do we simply\u00a0will<\/em> ourselves to keep going? \u00a0Or, can our work be self-motivating?<\/p>\n In a recent publication of\u00a0Voices from the Middle<\/em> Daniels and Pirayoff discuss how middle school teachers develop their own motivational working conditions in their article \u201cRelationships Matter: Fostering Motivation through Interactions\u201d<\/a>. \u00a0The article dresses directly this idea of self-motivation and inspires readers to build relationships in their teaching practices. \u00a0As it turns out, Daniels and Pirayoff uncover something I think I have known all along: teaching is about people. \u00a0The work we do to establish relationships will ultimately improve our working conditions and advance\u00a0our teaching, yet this is the one thing that I was never taught as a pre-service teacher.<\/p>\n During my undergraduate years when I was learning how to be a English teacher content area knowledge was privileged over all other domains in my professional training. \u00a0I attended a small, private college in central Kansas and I am certain the college was concerned about producing competent content-area experts. I am quite thankful that my college spent so much time steeping me and my classmates in literature, composition and the language arts. The content of an English class is often deeply inspirational and can be quite motivating. \u00a0I am reminded of each time I have read chapter 6 in Call of the Wild <\/em>aloud to a classroom of seventh graders and the moments throughout the year when a student volunteers to read his or her latest poem. \u00a0These, and experiences just like them, are watershed moments that inspire the teacher and the students to keep going, to give more to the class. But the content plays just a small part in our work. \u00a0It is\u00a0the relationships we build make the work of classroom teachers valuable, unique and memorable. \u00a0And it is relationships that ultimately connect us to our work and profession.<\/p>\n In their conclusion, Daniels and Pirayoff say, \u201cMotivating learning environments develop through daily attention to our interactions with students, collaboration with colleagues, and focus on a productive class climate.\u201d The authors will tell you that these are not groundbreaking revelations. However, these are the foundations we can establish to create a more motivating classroom. \u00a0Even when the conditions are not so motivational around us, we do have a great deal of control in how we purposefully connect with our students, collaborate with our colleagues and set the expectations of our classrooms.<\/p>\n One area I have tried to develop in my practice now as a teacher-educator is helping pre-service teachers understand how to develop these important connections with their students and their students\u2019 parents. \u00a0There are, in fact, a number of valuable ways teachers can interact with the students under their care in order to improve the working conditions of the classroom. \u00a0Over the years I have relied heavily on the work of Jim and Charles Fay and the Love and Logic <\/a>approach. \u00a0Their strategies are easy to communicate to pre-service teachers and they can make an observable impact.<\/p>\n Some of the things we talk about when discussing Love and Logic are:<\/p>\n Finding your own path to motivation is important; it is by walking this path that we find a genuine connection to our work and forge our own connectedness. \u00a0Daniels and Pirayoff, along with Fay and Fay, provide some insight\u00a0on how we can find\u00a0that path, but it is a path that we might ultimately need to cut for ourselves in the wilderness of our practice. \u00a0Yes, there will be tall grass, vines, burrs and thorny hedges along the way, but with the right tools we find our way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I once worked for an amazing administrator named John Blazek. \u00a0Mr. B. was a passionate school leader who managed his people with respect and dignity. \u00a0He wasn\u2019t perfect. \u00a0Nobody is. \u00a0But he fostered an environment that made it very easy for me to love my job, and that is no small thing. I have come … <\/p>\n\n