motivation

Understanding what, where, and how much motivation should be a question on any educators mind. As teachers we all need to work towards how we are going to motivate each student in our classes. However with the addtion of reading this article i know that this is an unacheivable goal 95% of the time.There are a whole host of factors that play into a students motivation. One important factor that many people overlook is the impact a childs outside life plays into their motication. As a child i was blessed to have college educated parents who knew how important every step in my education was going to be important. As a forth grader i struggled with math, and my parents saw a huge shift in my entire motivation for school. They immidiately wanted to fix the problem before it affected my other grades. When children have involved parents that motivate them at home it is easier for the students to be motivated when they are at school. Many students are not afforded the luxury of having parents who are always there motivating and pushing their children to suceed. As teachers we need to spend the extra time in our days to focus on these children and maybe give them the little support that they might not be recieving at home. Brophe points this out when he explains the importance of encouragement as a way to motivate your students. But support is not the only factor in motivation.  The articel talks about the importance of setting personal goals rather that focusing on standarized preformance alone. If a teacher has enough hours in the day to set personal goals for all of his/her students then i can see this as a great motivator however the world is based on standardiation. If you take that out of the school system it creates a huge problem with understaning where a student is at in comparision to their peers, and we all know that america is based around competition so in the end is setting personal goals helping or hendering our students?