Let’s face it…. You can’t monitor them and you can’t badger them… they have to badger themselves!!!

What do I mean?

Well, firstly, do you think that really successful people have a vision or absolutely no idea what they want?

So, let’s assume that they did have a vision, you know that this is the truth.

You can be sure, that the time when you achieved most in your life was when you wanted something the most. It stands to reason.

This following exercise with your students takes just 15 minutes, it’s also very powerful and effective…

This is an exercise for them to complete with themselves. It’s not for you to mark or check or validate in any way. It’s about them managing themselves and their own mind.

You say to your students:

1. “What’s an important thing for you to do over christmas? (typical answers – going out, doing nothing, having fun or seeing friends etc….)”
2. ” Similarly, what’s important to you in the next year? (Holiday, exams, money etc…)”
3. “What’s important to you in the next 10 years? (job, house, family etc…)”

They write something down… under each of these headings (this is already a good start). If they try to be clever then they’ll say “nothing – I don’t want anything”. You say “That’s ok, you’ve achieved your dream in life then, because you’ve already got nothing !!”

1. “Which one of the three things (this month, this year or the next 10 years) is the most important to you today?”
2. “Which of these things will be the most important thing to you when you’re 70 years old?”

“Let’s face it, you want to achieve all 3 things right? (I mean, who wouldn’t?) “

• So, taking each section (NOW, this year, 10 years) one at a time; ask these 2 questions…

1. “What would be the most useful thing that you could you do NOW that will help you achieve all 3 things?”
2. “What would NOT be useful and would prevent you from doing these 3 things?”

This WILL get your students to think clearly about what they really want to do today for today… and also what they might have to think about or do today for tomorrow. Although they may ‘decide’ not to complete the whole thing; it doesn’t mean they haven’t thought about it.

Powerful stuff.

An article in ‘The Times online’ talks about how ‘a whistleblower tells how her fellow inspectors fret more over pupils lunch boxes than their literacy!! ‘

Why does this not surprise me; because knowing what I know about government organisations (I used to run Sheffield school dinners for the local authority for 5 years), I ‘could’ totally believe their interest in the latest gimmicks and fads within schools. I could also believe that they lose the sense of context and the reality of what they were designed to do in the first place.  This is a little harsh, but I agree with the author, it’s definitely true for me.

The article quotes…

“School shatters your dreams before you get anywhere.” – It’ hard for me to disagree with this when I see the students body language in the workshops I run, they look disinterested and not ‘bovvered’ before we’ve even started. I know that their aspirations are determined to a large degree by their parents and their environment. The problem for me, is that many of them seem to have ‘given up’ so soon !!!

It also quotes…

“Ofsted is subject to political pressure. The emphasis is on what makes the government look good rather than what might benefit pupils”. I can easily believe that this point is true. NOT being a teacher, I don’t know, but I can believe that there are so many new initiatives to contend with. My experience of government/local authorities is that they are very risk averse and are very good at ‘covering their back-sides’, rather than necessarily benefiting the students. Show me a ‘brave’ local authority !!!

For me I feel very fortunate because I don’t have anybody to answer to, I just get to talk about stuff that benefits and changes the lives of students.

My view is that if at the same time ‘it happens’ to fit in with the curriculum (SEAL, PSHE and Every Child Matters), then great, if NOT….  I’m not bovvered !!

There is no ‘political agenda’ with what we do, all we’re interested in is harnessing the ‘dreams of young people’. Everything we do directly benefits the pupil irrespective of whether it looks good or not !!

I’m sure that Cedric (the boy featured in the article) does possess considerable talent, but the BIG question is whether or not the education system or Cedric will ever get to find out !!!

It’s a bit political and a bit Ben Elton !!    and I like it…

How do you make plans for the future if you don’t know what it is that you want to do ???

The answer of course is

‘you wouldn’t…!’, ‘you wouldn’t do anything unless you had a reason to do it…’

Seriously,

• You wouldn’t get dressed unless you had somewhere to go
• You wouldn’t eat your dinner unless you were hungry and … equally
• You wouldn’t get into a taxi just for the view !!! That would seem mad !!

BUT, people get transfixed by what they want to DO and less of who they want to BE. I‘ll explain.

ONE simple FACT

Most people don’t know what they want to do when they leave school. Most of us grown-ups don’t even know what we want to do and we’ve been around loads longer !!

BUT, I bet you know who you want to  BE….

ANOTHER simple FACT

People know who they want to BE…

People always have a vision about what they aspire to look like, behave, holiday, friends, hairstyle etc…. it’s perfectly normal.

So, for me it was simple…

1. I wanted to be successful
2. I wanted to look good
3. I wanted to have a nice car
4. I wanted to own a house
5. I wanted to be married
6. I wanted to have kids
7. I wanted to look have fun
8. I wanted to go on expensive holidays

NOW, whilst some of these things are not quite so TRUE today (I didn’t even mention my health), they were then…

And, when you know who you want to be then you normally have some clarity about what it is that you need to do to get there….

For example, I can still easily BE all of the above whether I’m a doctor or an accountant or a business owner. The point being that just because your job changes (what you do), you can still achieve your ambitions doing something else (what you want to be).

ONE more simple FACT

People change their minds !!

This is normal – who doesn’t change their mind in their life, we all do. I did and I’m sure you did too. What is good for you at the age of 16 is unlikely to good for you at 36.

So, planning for the future is actually straight forward enough if you focus on who you want to be and less what you want to do….

Q: Is it the role of teachers to motivate students?
A: You decide?

That’s not a cop out… BUT, one teacher once told me “I taught them, they just didn’t learn it”.

Where does the learning start and where does it end?

If I was a comedian and I told you “I was funny, but , they just didn’t laugh !!”. Is that true?

Or the salesman who said “I sold it them, they just didn’t buy it”. Surely the true measurement is in the result of what we said we did.

My previous marriage – I might have said “yeah, I loved my wife – BUT, did she feel loved?”…. you’d have to ask her !!!

So, going back to the teacher who said, “I taught them, they just didn’t learn”. That doesn’t quite stack up. So, how do you motivate students to learn then?

The techniques people often use…

Competition – This is a good thing BUT it’s good to realize that it doesn’t work for all kids. The reality is, the only person who is truly motivated by competition is the person who thinks he/she has a chance of winning!

Rewards don’t always work either, if the child is having difficulty. All reward systems are based on the concept that the child CAN DO IT, he just chooses NOT TO. That’s great if you know they’re not really trying.

Punishment is not normally very effective way because it takes the child’s favourite thing, whether it be a football or a skateboard, and take it away from him when they’re bad. Marriages even break up over sex or money, and it’s because one spouse takes the thing that the other spouse wants and uses it to manipulate the other person. You’re basically saying “I’ll give it to you when you’re good, and I won’t when you’re bad.” So if it doesn’t work with adults maybe it might not be all that effective with kids?

So, what do I do to motivate?
The NINE RULES here I have made up are inspired by the author Richard Lovoie.

Play – Have fun, enjoy, enthuse and bring energy to the room.
“No-one ever achieved anything without enthusiasm” Emerson

Personal – School is about life.
• Indulge your students and listen to their stories.
• Indulge yourself – Share your stories with them… if it benefits them?

Provoke – Ask questions about life, ask questions about the topic – it gets them to think… It’s powerful when they get to see things through their own mind !

Praise – Catch People Doing Things Right. Be focused on praise BUT be specific and sincere. The praise should be focused on effort and improvement – this is always effective. We all need to feel good enough.

Power. Letting your students determine some of the agenda or make certain rules gets them to feel like they’re ‘in charge’ without you losing control.

Projects. These are very powerful mechanisms for connecting different skills and knowledge and harnessing natural curiosity.

Positive People. This gets them to learn quickly how to behave in a positive manner.

Prizes. Rewards can be powerful when they are unannounced and not too familiar. The prize may be as innocuous or humorous as you like.

Prestige. All children need to feel important, and some more than others, so prestige and recognition are fundamental. Consistent encouragement and opportunities to showcase these talents are important.

That’s it… These techniques are NOT magic as you can see, they’re just ways of keeping people focused when their natural attention wanes. It’s incredibly powerful and effective and it’s a lot of fun…

It’s funny – I get asked this all of the time. My job is to motivate students and yet, what is that motivates me?

Days gone by…
A few years ago (4 years ago to be precise), I ended up being divorced and depressed. It was a very dark time and one that I found hard to come to terms with.

However, whilst my life was seemingly out of control, I recognised that my fate was something that only I could control.

For the first time in my life I recognised what was truly important, it didn’t take me long to work out…

1. Seeing my kids
2. Paying for my kids
3. Anything else afterwards

Why?
It was simple really, I realised that my wife, house, material possessions, car and half an acre of land counted for very little. What I thought I ‘owned’ – I didn’t… I was merely in charge of them for NOW.
Q. If I did OWN them, then how come they got taken away from me in such a short space of time?
It dawned on me that I can’t own any of these things; the only thing I truly own is ME and my MEMORIES !! I also realised that maybe I didn’t really know who ME was.

When I’m older
Furthermore…. I also recognised that when I died – I’ll only leave behind three things of any value – That’s ‘Jack, Archie and Millie’ – my three kids.

I Needed to Change
So, I set about trying to spend more time with my kids and as a consequence I gave up my job and focused on the things that I truly valued – my kids !!

New Career – NEW Me !!
Within 2 years I was training and speaking with corporate organisation across the country. This was a great experience for me, but this was only the start of my learning curve.

I was a big kid in an adults body…
Being depressed was a horrible time for me but it taught me a lot. My vulnerabilities and my problems led me to recognise that what had happened to me was something I could have done with learning when I was much younger… ‘NOT at 37 years old !!’.
I also recognised that I wanted to reach out and touch more than just the corporate organisations of the world. I wanted to engage with young people and students – these were the people I could relate to.

Starting in Schools
I ran my first ‘Big Picture’ event to 85 student boys at Kings Grammar School in 2007 in a cold school gymnasium. It totally changed my life and also theirs…

This was the precursor to ‘The Big Picture’ that you see today.
So you can see that what truly motivates me is…

1. Personally – Seeing my children and being ME
2. Professionally – Changing the lives of students across the UK

“All I want to do is make a difference”

This is a very interesting article for me by Gary Lewandowski and David Strohmetz that sometimes have us believing that “When the students do well – we take the credit…. And equally, when they do badly, we blame them for being lazy !!”

The article for your reference is…
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/28/lewandowski

I know myself this very feeling… It’s frustrating. I take the same attitude though of the stage performers like Tommy Cooper who says “If they don’t laugh – it’s ‘cos I’m not funny”. Equally I accept that students don’t engage for one reason ‘only’ – and that is my lack of ability to engage them !!
This is harsh but surely true on my part. My job is to ‘engage’ them – that is my job.

The results for ‘The Big Picture’ are often quite immediate (we get engagement throughout the event and written feedback at the end) unlike that of a teacher at school who gets the ultimate measurement when the exam grades are announced a whole 10 months later!!

I think as humans there is a natural ‘default’ to blame others and believe that we have given excellent learning with brilliant research and the best ways of engaging the class… BUT is this always true?
When I first started doing what I do today, I used to believe that what I did was perfect; but yet it’s amazing how I’ve managed to improve upon ‘my previously perceived perfection’ . This is not arrogance just a little denial on my part because I don’t want to accept responsibility when things don’t turn out as I would like.

This is a big learning for me. For me, the responsibility is in two parts

1. Me to deliver phenomenal teaching
2. Students to utilise this teaching, work hard and deliver good exam grades as a result

This statement at least ‘feels’ right on my part. All I have to do now is deliver ‘phenomenal teaching’ and hope that my students keep their part of the bargain !!

I’ve been reading this article about motivation – it’s from Newsweek, here is the link
It’s written by an American guy called Po Bronson; it’s all about getting learning to be in the ‘flow’…

I like the fact that he equates motivation with the acceleration of our learning, ie. that we learn faster !!

You know how it is when something your doing ceases to feel like ‘work’ – it feels like ‘work and play’ all at the same time – this to me is really powerful.

‘Autotelic’ – and the curiosity of learning…
Po talks about learning being ‘autotelic’, I’ve never heard this word before. This word means that something is intrinsically meaningful and rewarding for it’s own sake not because it leads to something.
So, it’s all about ‘curiosity’ and finding things out ‘just because it’s interesting’.
Wouldn’t it be great if your students actually wanted to find out about the subjects they’re studying rather than being ‘pushed into their learning’.

The whole idea of learning is surely that it takes on a certain magical quality.
You know when this is happening because you lose all concept of time because you’re so engrossed and totally ‘riveted’. It’s a great feeling.

The secret to great teaching !!
I know that with ‘The Big Picture’ we want teaching that get’s students to discover great things. I’m sure you’ll agree that there isn’t a better way of learning. People learn most and learn fastest when they find out ‘themselves’.

I still love the idea of doing those projects when I was a kid – my teacher at primary school was Mrs Jones and she was very good at giving us projects on ‘Great explorers’, ‘Far Away Lands’ or ‘Flying machines’ etc…
I started to dream about the worlds that they lived in. I loved all the colouring-in and drawing of maps and the stories of what they did.

I used to get dead excited when I thought about all of the characters and the pioneering routes they embarked on. I still to this day have a fondness for Scott of The Antarctic, Charles Lindbergh and his ‘Spirit of St Louis’. If that is what you call ‘autotelic’ then I like it. I like it very much.