Welcome Back!  I am that for some of you summer vacation is only a dim memory because you have been back in school for almost a month.  In any case, I hope that you are off to a great start for the 2007-2008 school year.  I also hope that you are enjoying yourself and your students.  There is nothing as potent for storing information in the human brain as having fun in the process of learning.   I remember a high school teacher I met once who used all manner of games and competitions to get her students engaged and learning.  When I commended her for her energy and creativity in coming up with so many game ideas, she said “Oh.  I just had to.  It’s the only way I can keep their attention.  I just had to do it.” Make a commitment to have fun with your students this year. 

As I continue to travel about the country training educators, I find that the most requested program and persistent challenge for educators is Motivating the Unmotivated Student.  There are a multitude of reasons that we are seeing so many “unmotivated” students, especially among high school students including the lack of parental involvement, lack of exercise and nutrition, generational poverty and right brain dominance.  Understanding the reason for the lack of motivation makes a big difference in getting a student engaged and I will be addressing several of these issues in this and coming newsletters. 

There is, however, one thing that unmotivated students, at any age, have in common.  They are not oriented to the future.  They have little or no goal orientation, and live entirely in the moment and do not connect here and now actions with future consequences.  High school students will tell you on one hand that they want to graduate, and then do no work to pass a required class. 

The good news is that goal orientation is a learned skill and you can build the teaching of these skills into to your daily classroom routine.   Here are a few suggestions for helping students connect the here and now with the future:

•      Post daily learning goals. This is different than posting assignments.  Learning goals state exactly what information or skill to be mastered for that day.

•      Discuss the learning goals at the beginning of each class.  Be sure to connect the learning goals with real life reasons for needing this information.

•      Discuss the benefits of knowing this information and how achieving these goals will help them feel intelligent as well as be able to pass the necessary exams.  Always discuss goals, and achievement in terms of the emotions associate with them and not just practical matters, like you’ll be able to get a better job.

o   Example:  Learning goal:  Identify the function of the three houses of Congress. 

o   Learning Benefits:  It feels good and right to be a patriot.  It is fine say we are patriotic Americans but it isn’t really true if we do not know and understand how our government works.  Versus:  This will be on the test.

•      Save time at the end of class to review the learning goals.

•      Give students an opportunity to suggest ways of mastering this information.

•      Let them try putting the information in a right brain format---drawing, music, building a structure.