Motivating teachers

Quite passionate about motivating students, every now and then I begin to wonder where my motivation as a teacher comes from. I'm sure plenty of others have felt the same.

What keeps you motivated?

I did have a little lull a few weeks ago. I was suddenly dragged out of it when things the students said or wrote in their workbooks made me discover I wasn't wasting my time. They were learning and improving and they did value my efforts.

Yeah, diaries or similar are a great ego boost (even if it DOES mean you have to spend time reading 35+!). In my writing class about a month or so ago, I decided we would look at poetry, just as an awareness thing, rather than for assessment etc (differing styles of writing, y'know?). The reaction from the class when I announced this was enough to make me walk out. But, I kept on, starting with very simple kids poetry (we had great fun reading sarcastic poems about how much we love homework etc!), and I introduced them to the art of haiku- and suddenly they were fascinated.

Then I got them to close their eyes for a couple of minutes, then write down any and all emotions they were experiencing at that point of time. Given that the TEM exam was approaching there were a lot of high emotions! Then I asked them to turn these into a poem they would like to try, and many attempted their first haikus- and almost everyone tried to write several- it was great! Many of the students wrote about this experience in that's week's diary entry and it was a nice boost for me .

i teach primary and secondary  - mostly primary. This semester i said yes, to 30 classes a week. thats six a day, which is wearing me down.  Feeling it especially now having been doing it since feb. 
Anyway, i know when i dont deliver a good class, or my intentions are lacking, i think any teacher knows this. Sure sometimes its hard to find new and interesting things to do with the the higher level students, and sometimes it goes pear shaped. but i think if you genuinely care about the kids then they feel that and appreciate it too.
Its when you go into auto mode or you have the weekend thoughts in mind and are just counting the days before you get one off mentality that you get those 'what am i doing here' thoughts.
 
well thats for  me anyways.

As always its a mental adjustment thing that needed. Change your perspective, step back and have a look at the bigger picture, why are you here, doing what you are doing, look for the positives and recall the early weeks when you first arrived and hopefully were filled with wonder at it all.

It's like golf. A lot of bad shots but every once in awhile you hit one perfect and it's a great feeling that you want to repeat. The more you do it - the more perfect shots.

This year at my main job, I have 400 students. If I can make a positive impact on just one ..... well, I win.

Done it before, I'll do it again. Well worth the frustrations of a few 'bad shots'

When one students walks up to me after class and says, "I hear you have many books. Can I borrow one?" and then reads the thing and discusses it with me.

When one student calls me up and shouts "I passed my IELTS! I am going to Australia!"

As Stil so rightly pointed out, reach one, just one, and you win. I have roughly 150 students. Reaching one makes me motivated because, who knows, next time I'll reach two or  even three.

For me it's the money. The vast quantities of cash and moolah that I pile in the corners of my palatial apartment.

OK, I'm a liar.

It's for the sex.

Actually, it was a typo. I meant to say:

The lifestyle. The joy of teaching. The times when you get through and they say thanks. The stunned mullet look when something goes in through the cultural anti-thinking forcefield

But due to clumsiness, it came out wrong. I am sure you can see how it was just a simple slip.

• My previous life.  I only too vividly remember what it was like in (and will be like, when I have to rejoin) the 'grown-up' world.  Working from 8-6 is a far cry from working 12 hours per week.  This teaching is a BALL!!  It is the easiest least stressful job I have ever had in my life.

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This.

I came back to teaching after trying a normal, grown up job here in Beijing. I hated it. Teaching seemed like such a joy in hindsight. Whenever I get burnt out on teaching I remind myself what I could be doing instead.

Aside from that, the few students who actually get it are pretty inspiring. What I like is when we talk about something and they get involved and excited by the topic. The other day in my AP English class we were talking about the difference between Catholics and Protestants because there was a passage about this Catholic grandmother's rabid hatred for all things Protestant. Later on, at the end of the passage, there was a line that went something like "the daughters and daughters in law (converts from the false religion) would offer up platters of Baked Alaska as if they were presenting her with the head of John the Baptist himself." And wouldn't you know, after I'd explained it, there was a student or two who actually got a laugh out of that line! I love it when they "get" hard concepts, stuff that is really outside of their cultural scope of understanding. You can almost see their minds working, and sometimes they forget they are doing something hard and often tedious, and just enjoy the language.

Have you heard the story of the little boy standing by the sea tossing starfish back into the water?  There are hundreds of dead and dying starfish lying all over the sand.  Someone comes along and tells him he's not making a difference with his feeble effort and he replies, as he tosses yet another one back, "It makes a difference to THIS one."  In my previous life I attended a workshop for something-or-other and the leader gave us all a little starfish to remind us of that story.  I still have that reminder.  It's on a shelf at the foot of my stairs and I see it several times each day.  What Stil and Eric said - if we can reach one...

And it's quite a cushy lifestyle that I'm truly enjoying.  My daytime classes have finished for the semester - evenings only now.  I've set up office hours to meet 1-1 with students in my speech class.  "Oh, teacher, you must be so tired.  You work so hard."  It's laughable, really.  I sit and chat with delightful young people and get tremendous insight into their lives.