Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had as much practice," said the Queen

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had as much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age I did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
--Lewis Carrol, Through the Looking Glass

Ahh motivation, learning about all the ins and outs of it this semester has been really interesting in so many ways. I have made connections with motivation in almost every aspect of my life which has been great. At work, I'm a program manager for Early Childhood Business Services and work with preschool and childcare providers, mainly in very low-income areas, to strengthen the programs they run and support them to higher quality. They are motivated to reach the higher levels of quality in many ways, but once they start to realize that this could affect their already struggling "bottom line," they hesitate. While I understand this hesitation, I am committed to helping them take that next step, take a flying leap off the plank, imagine the impossible. It's certainly not an easy job, but I think it's so important that we provide the best environment possible to kids and teachers and families, I'm willing to imagine it all coming to fruition (while at the same time realizing sometimes you take 2 steps forward and 1 step back. I'm motivated, but I'm not completely naive to the ways of the world).

In my personal life, motivation has given me a nice bite this year. I am motivated to do the best I can at work, and was motivated to take 9 credits this summer, and also was motivated to buy a house at the same time which of course came with its own set of drama and challenges. While I am SO HAPPY to say I made it, I will caution anyone else that they may want to think twice about taking on so much...unless you like to have "character building" experiences pretty much every day for 8 or 9 solid weeks. Understanding that motivation can lead some people to occasionally take on too much (I do have a hard time saying no!) was good, just to help keep things in perspective at times.

This class was also really eye-opening for me in terms of being to recognize and identify self-handicapping and undermining strategies that people use both in their professional lives and personal lives. Again, I got great perspective on different aspects of how people do things, what inspires them to take that next leap and challenge, and how to support people of all ages that you can believe the impossible - it just takes a little practice and perseverance, and you have to be willing to try again, sometimes in a different way, if things don't go as planned the first round.

We Are What We Choose

http://www.businessinsider.com/we-are-what-we-choose-2010-6#ixzz0sTAQ8Dox

A friend of mine recently shared this Princeton commencement speech, given by Jeff Bezos of Amazon this past Spring. I know commencement speeches are meant to be inspiring, but this really struck a chord with me in light of this Human Motivation class we have all been participating in.

He really identifies many of the themes we've been discussing, and is very blunt in questioning the graduating class. They are obviously a talented group, and have likely been told so many steps of the way. He asks how they will use their gifts, and if they will take pride in their gifts OR take pride in their choices? He relays a story of when he was a child, when he inadvertently hurt his beloved grandmother's feelings, and tells how his grandfather pulled him aside to say "One day, you will understand that it's harder to be kind than clever." What a great and powerful message.

I think this relates so strongly to all that we have learned about motivation! A growing body of evidence shows that students have a decrease in motivation when they are given extrinsic motivators and rewards, and also that children learn quickly how to highlight their smarts but step back and sometimes outright refuse to participate if they feel failure could follow their effort. How do we challenge them to see failure as opportunity to try again, and to try in another way, and to stay persistent, and to stretch and grow their entire lives?

To me, it seems one huge way of doing this is to put a lot of effort into really knowing our students...which can be really challenging! Also valuable is encouraging participation on the part of the parents, which can be even more challenging, and sharing enough of your strategies that the parents feel comfortable with them and use the same strategies at home. Working in ECE, this is possible and encouraged, but I'm not sure how well my ideas could work in K-12. It seems like between limited time with families, limited resources, and the demands of standardized testing it could be an extreme challenge. But as they say, it takes a village...