Doing the Impossible: Motivating Middle School Students

Esling, Kathleen

ET

Davis, A., & Forbes, L. (2016). Doing the impossible: Motivating middle school students. Voices from the Middle, 23(4).

This was an article from the Voices from the Middle publication. It talks about the dreaded task of trying to motivate a middle-schooler ... a task that is sometimes more difficult that it seems it should be! Rather than using incentives, the authors argue, teachers should instead rely on communication as a way for middle schoolers to tap into their own motivation. Organizing classrooms in such a way as to facilitate discussion in-class and keep kids face-to-face with one another is Davis and Forbes's preferred method of "tapping" into existing motivation.

I really enjoyed some of this article, but as an introvert, I did not see where introverted students would get the support that they need. Communication in a classroom is great, but constant groupwork and partner discussion is tiring. Having worked in open-offices, I know that it can get very exhausting very quickly if someone is an introvert. I actually felt a little bit validated in my experiences when I read Susan Cain's Quiet. (And yes, while introverts do need to learn how to "deal" with being socially exhausted, it sometimes begins to feel like the decks are stacked against us when every new office or school layout is open-air!) I wish that the authors had included an insight into that population in the classroom as pods and circles do not make every student feel most at-ease and ready to work in class.