Just Enough Time to Teach Discipline and Motivation

As teachers, we are called upon daily to reach down into the very last drop of energy, the very last glimmer of endurance, in order to always be present to our students.  Sometimes it would be nice if there was a pause button, some way to catch our breath.  How can we make sure that we have what it takes to continue to teach with passion, even when what we most want to do is hit snooze and take a much needed break?  As May begins, we hear our colleagues counting down; only 7 more Mondays, only 38 more days, 46 counting weekends, etc...We are among the short-timers...a term used to describe someone nearing the end of military service.  To the short-timer, patience for the minutia of the daily grind is just about depleted, planning seems futile, and all that is getting one through each day is the approach of the end.  That may be how the end is experienced in the military (though I wonder) but this attitude has absolutely no place in school! The difference between the military short-timer and the educational short-timer is the classroom set of twenty, twenty-five or thirty eyeballs that are still watching, soaking up what it is that you have to teach.

And so, in these last few weeks of the school year, what will you teach?

Will you teach discipline?  All year you have implored your students to follow through, finish what they started and work to their fullest potential at all times.  If you haven't said at least a version of one of these adages to a student at some point this year, I would be surprised.  At the end of the year, we are given the greatest opportunity to teach these adages through our own actions and words.  When you keep giving it your all, even through testing days and end-of-year hoopla,  your students will learn that you follow through with your intentions.  They will sense that we as teachers do what we have set out to do, and we do it well, because that's what intentional disciplined people are all about.  Formal observations are completed, "normal" school days will be scattered among festivities and interruptions.  These will be the hardest days to remain faithful to teaching, demonstrating the discipline of intentionality. It is challenging to teach discipline by example in the beginning of the school year when everything is exciting and new, and we cannot demonstrate it effectively when we are coasting along mid-year and well into our teaching groove.  But this time of year, the time when we have to dig down to find every ounce of oomph we have left, this is when we can rise above the desire to check out and truly demonstrate for students the discipline we hope they will learn.

Will you teach motivation?  Motivation is that push, from inside oneself or from an outside source, that propels us to act.  It is different from discipline in that it is based on positive inclinations.  Discipline helps us follow through,even when we are not excited to do so.  Motivation ensures and requires that we are excited to do so and keeps us moving on track toward our goals through its feeding of our inner strength.  Motivation can be created for the athlete who wants to play in the next game and so he studies for his test to bring his scores up, but it can also be created by the student's innate drive to know "I can do it!"  Motivation for teachers can be created when we know we are being observed on Monday, when we want to build relationships with our students, or when we know that our students need certain skills in order to move on to the next level.

So what does this mean for our motivation as the year winds down?  Where will you find your motivation?  After all, your time with these students is almost coming to an end, your curriculum is almost completed (or so far from completion that the fight is futile), and summer will come regardless of what you do.  Perhaps the motivation we need most can come from the desire to demonstrate to children how to be motivated against the current.  Motivation, when there is little on the horizon that is notable, is difficult to find.  Motivation relies on anticipation... and so, as teachers we must create anticipation.  Consider how you might do this, and get to it...there's not much time left!  One idea might be to celebrate one child a day for the remainder of the school year.  It might motivate you and the class if you take the time to determine and showcase those traits that each student has brought to the classroom throughout the year.  Students can make a schedule and then continue to plan and maintain a level of excitement as they come to school each day ready to celebrate a friend.  Celebrating others and creating an atmosphere of collaboration in the planning can be a great motivator!  What other ideas do you have to help you continue to feel motivation and model it for your students?

No one said it was going to be easy.  You didn't sign up for easy.  It wasn't until running a half marathon that I appreciated the fact that the only way to train for miles 11-13 is to run miles 1-10.  And after you've run miles 1-10, the last thing you want to do is give up because you lack the discipline and motivation to finish strong.  We have made it to the final miles.  This is when we really get to show what we are made of, to show our grit, to display those very traits we wish "kids today" demonstrated more often.  Let's teach these final two lessons in such a way that our students are left with an unforgettable example of their teachers' incredible discipline and motivation, just when those traits were hardest to muster.