motivation – Pernille Ripp

books, Literacy, motivation, Reading, Reading Identity, student driven, Student Engagement

On Being Demanding Readers

April 27, 2019 Pernille Ripp

“Motivation and engagement are critical for adolescent readers. If students are not motivated to read, research shows that they will simply not benefit from reading instruction.” (Kamil, 2003 via ASCD).

These words have traveled the world with me for the past few years and yet every time I come to this slide in my presentation on helping students become and remain passionate readers, it still stops me. No matter how many times I see it, it still strikes me as vital, as something that we often skim over when the content piles up, when the year gets rolling, when our plates get full. And yet, if there is something that teaching middle schoolers has taught me, it is that if I ignore their innate sense of purposeful reading (or purposeful learning overall), then I will never be successful in convincing many of them that reading is worthwhile.

Now, don’t misunderstand, I know that students also need to be taught the specific skills of reading in order to be successful readers, yet I have continued to remind myself and others that skills will never be enough. That if we do not carve out time to work on the motivation of reading, to work on what it means to find a book that speaks to you in a new way, on what it means to select a book that entices us with possibility, then all the skills teaching in the world will never be enough.

And so, we teach our students to be demanding readers. For those who seem to never find success within their book selection, to first take the time it takes to throughly bookshop, not because they cannot wait to dismiss all of the books, but because so often they pick up a random book with no investment, no recognition of themselves as a reader within its pages. When students don’t know how to select a book for themselves we often hand them stacks, I do this often, yet if we don’t also engage them in a conversation about who they are as a reader, then we rob them of the chance of discovering the answer to that question. We keep them in a cycle of reliance on others. This means that students must take the time it sometimes takes to properly browse through books coupled with a continued reflection on themselves, yet often, my students who don’t like reading much would rather rush.

We also teach our students that demanding excellence from their choice of books is not something to be ashamed of. That they deserve to find a book that speaks to them. That yes, they should take a chance on a book that they perhaps never considered, but they should also be okay with letting a book go, in order to continue shopping. This delicate balance is one we work through. Some kids end up stuck in the book shopping loop and so we change the conversation surrounding them ,whereas others continue to just grab and go and then wonder why that book didn’t work.

So we tell our students, our children, that they should want to read the book they select, but in order to get there, they first need to know themselves. They should see this reading year as a reading journey meant to uncover their likes and dislikes, their quirks and their strengths. That they should see this reading year as a continuation of the journey they have already been on, one where they should want to become something more than they were before. That they need to figure out the tools they can use for when they leave us.

I do this through continued reflection on who they are as a reader. We do this as we continue to share book recommendations. They do this as they continue to rank books in order to reflect on what made a book “amazing” versus a book that was just “ok.” We keep the conversation going in order for them to see when they are motivated to read and when they are not.

It takes time.

It takes patience.

It takes thought.

It takes reflection.

And it takes persistence that they demand excellence out of their books. That they should be able to recognize when a book does not get them more motivated to read. That they should be okay with saying this book is not for me, in order to find something that will be for them. That they should not settle into the dangerous habit of finding only ok books in order to keep themselves reading and the adults off their backs.

It works, perhaps not for all (after all, what does?) but for many, who for whatever reason had yet to have this very conversation, this very experience.

So if I want our readers to continue to be motivated to read beyond our days together, then that has to come from them. It has to be intrinsic. Not because I told them they had to read, after all, what power does my voice really have, but because they have seen the value of reading and want to invest in it. That they leave our year together or the years in their lives spent in school, knowing that there are incredible books waiting to be discovered by them if only they keep searching. I want our students to be hungry for more when they leave. I want them to demand excellence.

PS: In case, you missed the announcement, I am running a book study of my first book Passionate Learners this summer in the Passionate Readers Facebook group. You should join us!

If you like what you read here, consider reading my newest book, Passionate Readers – The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child. This book focuses on the five keys we can implement into any reading community to strengthen student reading experiences, even within the 45 minute English block. If you are looking for solutions and ideas for how to re-engage all of your students consider reading my very first book Passionate Learners – How to Engage and Empower Your Students. Also, if you are wondering where I will be in the coming year or would like to have me speak, please see this page.

Be the change, being a teacher, being me, motivation, reflection, Student-centered, students

Some Thoughts on Motivation

July 13, 2014 Pernille Ripp

When I moved this blog to WordPress some posts did not survive, so in an effort to move some of my favorite posts with me, I will be republishing them here. This post first appeared in May, 2011.

“Mrs. Ripp, this is so boring.” That sentiment greets me on semi-regular basis from one child. Most days he is passionate, funny, and involved, that is, if he likes what we happen to be during. Today is no different, he has been involved, engaged, and eager most of the day but now the fatigue has set in and the writing prompt just does not want to get done. This is a regular occurrence throughout America, passionate students that are mostly motivated at all times but sometimes hit slumps. This post is not about them.

Instead, this post is about those kids that put their head on their desks, that groan when we give directions, that could not care less about threats, rewards, punishment or motivating pep talks. Those are the kids we all meet; the truly unmotivated. Those students that do not see the relevance, the importance, or even the wisdom behind school. Those students that feel that this is just a temporary illness, something to be waited out for real life to begin. And yes, we have them even at the elementary level.

The other night, I shared on Twitter, “I always wonder if having unmotivated students just mean that what I am teaching is unmotivating, I think it does.” Lo and behold a man I admire greatly, Tom Whitby, was kind enough to engage me in my train of thoughts. As we discussed, my own thoughts became much clearer:

Motivation is linked to the teacher whether we we believe it should be or not.

If a student fails, the teacher is most often the first to be blamed before any outside factions are investigated. (Whether this is appropraite or not).

We have the most control over what happens within our classroom.

As part of this discussion, Tom Perran offered up this article discussing how teachers only have control over 10 of 16 motivating factors. And yet as teachers we do have to own up to our part in motivation. Last year, when I sat through another round of book report presentations I yawned often, stretched to stay awake, got droopy eyelids, and yet admonished the students for getting restless and unfocused Hmm, that doesn’t seem right.

As teachers, part of our job is to provide engaging lessons, but it is this definition of engaging that seems to mess us up. I used to think that by engagement it meant me lecturing for a while and then giving the students work time, as long as I kept the questions coming, the students were engaged, right? For some reason most of the time my results were less than stellar. I also used to think that as long as I provided some sort of choice then the students would find their motivation. And while our more self-reliant students did because they already have a sense of duty instilled by the teacher, some students didn’t. Enter in punishment and rewards. If a student didn’t turn in their work then recess was taken away, and if that didn’t work then a 0 was given. Ooh a failing grade. They even got their name on the board and were not offered a chance to enter the weekly drawing for the monthly pizza party, confused? So was I.

The problem with punishment and reward though is that it often only motivates in the short term. A student knows that as long as they hand something in, even if it is awful, then that counts as a finished product. As a teacher, I often lost sleep over what to do with these students. they seemed already by 4th grade to hate school, finding it a punishment for childhood, and worst of all, they knew how to work the system. So what to do? Again, I realized that the problem wasn’t the students, it was the curriculum and how I taught it, so really it was me. See, I am the biggest in school motivator there is. While I may not be the one that decides what to teach, I most certainly am the one that decided HOW to teach it. And if I thought that lecturing (which even put me to sleep in college) was going to capture the imaginations of 9 year olds’ then I was an idiot.

So after almost a year of changing things up, this is what I have realized as far as motivation:

Choice matters. When students choose not just what they will do for a project but also what they would like to learn about within a perimeter, you get buy-in. This continues to be one of the most exciting simple realizations I have come across.
Motivation is contagious. When one student gets excited and has an opportunity to share that enthusiasm, it catches. My students get to blog about projects, we have huddles where we share and we are a bit louder than we used to be. But guess what? Those loud noises are usually students super excited about something.
Eliminate punishment and rewards. This short-term motivator seemed more harmful than helpful to me. This year we have class parties when we feel we want one, I have lunch with all my students several times a month because they ask me to, and no one is excluded from anything. When homework doesn’t get done, I ask them how they plan to fix it, most students choose to do it at recess. Fine by me, they are free to go if they choose.
Be excited yourself. The fastest way for kids to lose interest is if you are bored. I realized that I hated some of the things and taught and how I taught them (goodbye grammar packets), so something had to change. Now my students joke about how I almost always introduce something new with “I am so excited to do this…”
Look at outside factors. Some students have a lot more on their plate than we could ever realize. Ask questions, get to know your students, and be a listening ear. When my husband lost his job, it was hard for me to be excited about things as well because I was too busy worrying.
Control what you can. We will never be able to control what our students go home to but we sure can control what happens in the room. All the teachers I know choose to create a caring environment where all students feel safe. This alone means students let their guards down and feel it is okay to work hard and have fun.

Loss of motivation doesn’t just happen overnight, I believe all students start out motivated and then life gets in the way. At some point during their school years they start to hate school feeling it is stagnant and irrelevant. I therefore do everything in my power to ensure that students leave my classroom still liking school, perhaps a small goal, but an incredible important one. If they like to be in your room, then it is up to you to figure out how to keep them engaged.

I am a passionate teacher in Wisconsin, USA, who has taught 4, 5th, and 7th grade. Proud techy geek, and mass consumer of incredible books. Creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI, and believer in all children. I have no awards or accolades except for the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day. First book “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classrooms Back to Our Students” can be purchased now from Powerful Learning Press. Second book“Empowered Schools, Empowered Students – Creating Connected and Invested Learners” can be pre-ordered from Corwin Press now. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.

Be the change, being a teacher, motivation, principals, reflection

Dear Administrators, Please Rescue the Staff Meeting

November 18, 2013November 20, 2013 Pernille Ripp

There are few things that induce quite as visceral reaction as bringing up staff meetings to teachers. (If in doubt check all the someecards that have been made discussing it!) It is not that teachers are opposed to meetings, after all most meetings mean collaboration, the reaction is more to what we think happens at staff meetings: you sit and get information and then you leave. Not exactly the most inspiring use of anyone’s time.

But it doesn’t need to be like this anymore. Technology has provided us with the tools to communicate what we need without people being present to hear it thus removing most of the time usage at most traditional staff meetings. Now I am not here to say we shouldn’t have meetings, I love meetings, I am here to say they should be a better use of everyone’s time. So why not reclaim the traditional staff meeting and make it something every teacher looks forward to?

How about skipping all of the information giving? Send out on email instead and then expect people to read it. Most email services have a function where you can see whether someone read it or not. Make it part of the job and if it isn’t read then those people can attend a special meeting where the same information is presented.
Make it hands on professional development. With all of the new roll outs facing all of us, I would love work time to try things, discuss things and attack something as a staff. Staff meeting time would be perfect for this.
How about making it collaboration time when possible? One of our staff meetings a month was made into collaboration time several years ago and it has been incredible. To be given the gift of time to either meet in an action team or with your grade level is truly one of the best things we can do for staff.
Make it in the morning. After school I usually have 5 fires to put out before I go home, or it feels that way anyway. I get that contract time starts at different times, but I would rather have a short 25 minute meeting before school than a long 45 one after school. When there is a bell deadline there is a sense of urgency that simply is not present in the afternoon when we are all distracted. However, if staff meetings become awesome then perhaps we would all be more focused during them.
Spread the responsibility. Whoever decided that principals should be the only one in charge of meetings didn’t consider all of the teacher leaders that can exist at a school or even the immense work load carried by all principals I have ever met. If you want to make it professional development, put others in charge. Let teachers teach teachers and let us work on something, not just sit and get.
Bring in parents and students. Too often these stakeholders are left out of a school’s professional discourse. I would love to hear from parents and students how they would like to be taught something or the ideas they may have. Also, I wonder how many experts do we have among our parents that could teach us something? How often is this part of our population left out of decisions and discussions?
Teach us something. I would to leave each staff meeting knowing something new or armed with a new idea to try in my room. But we need time to share those ideas, we need time to try new things and figure them out. Why not make the staff meeting a central component of what we should be learning?

What did I miss?

I am a passionate (female) 5th grade teacher in Wisconsin, USA, proud techy geek, and mass consumer of incredible books. Creator of the Global Read Aloud Project, Co-founder of EdCamp MadWI, and believer in all children. I have no awards or accolades except for the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day. First book “Passionate Learners – Giving Our Classroom Back to Our Students Starting Today” will be released this fall from PLPress. Follow me on Twitter @PernilleRipp.

being a teacher, change, inspiration, motivation, Student-centered

Some Thoughts on Motivation

May 7, 2011 Pernille Ripp

Honestly, this post has to start with a disclaimer. I have only been teaching for a little over 3 years in a middle-class school at an elementary level. Because of this I have had few run-ins with highly unmotivated students, as well as older students. And yet, unmotivated students surround us, they show up in our schools at an alarming pace and already at the elementary level we struggle to reignite the fire. So perhaps an elementary perspective is not so awful after all.

“Mrs. Ripp, this is so boring.” That sentiment greets me on semi-regular basis from one child. Most days he is passionate, funny, and involved, that is, if he likes what we happen to be during. Today is no different, he has been involved, engaged, and eager most of the day but now the fatigue has set in and the writing prompt just does not want to get done. This is a regular occurrence throughout America, passionate students that are mostly motivated at all times but sometimes hit slumps. This post is not about them.

Instead, this post is about those kids that put their head on their desks, that groan when we give directions, that could not care less about threats, rewards, punishment or motivating pep talks. Those are the kids we all meet; the truly unmotivated. Those students that do not see the relevance, the importance, or even the wisdom behind school. Those students that feel that this is just a temporary illness, something to be waited out for real life to begin. And yes, we have them even at the elementary level.

The other night, I shared on Twitter, “I always wonder if having unmotivated students just mean that what I am teaching is unmotivating, I think it does.” Lo and behold a man I admire greatly, Tom Whitby, was kind enough to engage me in my train of thoughts. As we discussed, my own thoughts became much clearer:

Motivation is linked to the teacher whether we we believe it should be or not.

If a student fails, the teacher is most often the first to be blamed before any outside factions are investigated.

We have the most control over what happens within our classroom.

As part of this discussion, Tom Perran offered up this article discussing how teachers only have control over 10 of 16 motivating factors. And yet as teachers we do have to own up to our part in motivation. Last year, when I sat through another round of book report presentations I yawned often, stretched to stay awake, got droopy eyelids, and yet admonished the students for getting restless and unfocused Hmm, that doesn’t seem right.

As teachers, part of our job is to provide engaging lessons, but it is this definition of engaging that seems to mess us up. I used to think that by engaging it meant me lecturing for a while and then giving the students work time, as long as I kept the questions coming, the students were engaged, right? For some reason most of the time my results were less than stellar. I also used to think that as long as I provided some sort of choice then the students would find their motivation. And while our more self-reliant students did because they already have a sense of duty instilled by the teacher, some students didn’t. Enter in punishment and rewards. If a student didn’t turn in their work then recess was taken away, and if that didn’t work then a 0 was given. Ooh a failing grade. They even got their name on the board and were not offered a chance to enter the weekly drawing for the monthly pizza party, confused? So was I.

The problem with punishment and reward though is that it often only motivates in the short term. A student knows that as long as they hand something in, even if it is awful, then that counts as a finished product. As a teacher, I often lost sleep over what to do with these students. they seemed already by 4th grade to hate school, finding it a punishment for childhood, and worst of all, they knew how to work the system. So what to do? Again, I realized that the problem wasn’t the students, it was the curriculum and how I taught it, so really it was me. See, I am the biggest in school motivator there is. While I may not be the one that decides what to teach, I most certainly am the one that decided HOW to teach it. And if I thought that lecturing (which even put me to sleep in college) was going to capture the imaginations of 9 year olds then I was an idiot.

So after almost a year of changing things up, this is what I have realized as far as motivation:

Choice matters. When students choose not just what they will do for a project but also what they would like to learn about within a perimeter, you get buy-in. This continues to be one of the most exciting simple realizations I have come across.
Motivation is contagious. When one student gets excited and has an opportunity to share that enthusiasm, it catches. My students get to blog about projects, we have huddles where we share and we are a bit louder than we used to be. But guess what? Those loud noises are usually students super excited about something.
Eliminate punishment and rewards. This short-term motivator seemed more harmful than helpful to me. This year we have class parties when we feel we want one, I have lunch with all my students several times a month because they ask me to, and no one is excluded from anything. When homework doesn’t get done, I ask them how they plan to fix it, most students choose to do it at recess. Fine by me, they are free to go if they choose.
Be excited yourself. The fastest way for kids to lose interest is if you are bored. I realized that I hated some of the things and taught and how I taught them (goodbye grammar packets), so something had to change. Now my students joke about how I almost always introduce something new with “I am so excited to do this…”
Look at outside factors. Some students have a lot more on their plate than we could ever realize. Ask questions, get to know your students, and be a listening ear. When my husband lost his job, it was hard for me to be excited about things as well because I was too busy worrying.
Control what you can. We will never be able to control what our students go home to but we sure can control what happens in the room. All the teachers I know choose to create a caring environment where all students feel safe. This alone means students let their guards down and feel it is okay to work hard and have fun.

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