Marketing Motivation
Though he’s not a teacher, I find myself constantly applying Ryan Holiday’s thoughts on motivation and success to teaching. Here’s a piece by him on using incentives to motivate.
I confess that when I’m tired, I tend to catch myself turning to consequences in order to manage student behavior. Ironically, this approach leads to more work and strains teacher-student rapport.
When faced with this approach to motivation and management, I’ve often heard teachers say things like “they’re students and must do what you say.” Above all else, they’ll warn against being weak.
The subtlety of properly marketing an assignment, behavior, etc. is not weakness. It’s effective, as shown by Jim’s use of ideals and principles to manage student behavior.
Are you communicating your expectations and behaviors or are you marketing them?
