Motivation Mojo

Get them to do it by letting them do it.

While it’s important to motivate journalism students with a fair and accountable grading system, it’s also true that motivation isn’t only about grading. There will always be those kids (and adults!) who say: “That’s good enough.” Or, “I’ll just take the C, no biggie.” How do you get those people to work just as hard as the self-motivated perfectionists?

Here’s one way: Let the students really, truly own the publication. Let them make the decisions (with gentle guidance). Let them solve the problems (with gentle guidance). Let them take the glory (when the going is good), and let them take the heat (when the going gets rough). In this type of setup, even the content-with-a-C student will not want to be the one to let his peers down. It’s one thing to let your teacher down – or even let yourself down – and it’s another issue entirely to fail your fellow staffers.

When a publication is run this way, a student who wants to procrastinate on a news story won’t want to make his friend the news editor look bad. And the news editor will care, because she won’t want her section to make the rest of the paper look bad. The result of this system is that everyone cares – and gets to feel very proud when there is success.

Do your best to remind the staff that editor positions mean something. Attend local, state or national scholastic press conventions to give students a bigger view of how many of their peers are involved in journalism. Throw an end-of-year awards banquet and make a big fuss. Give out plaques or other forms of recognition. Simple tools like these award status to the hard-working students. It’s their job; it’s their section; it’s their publication: they are accomplished!

As a teacher you may find it hard to step back and not just tell your students what to do. Just take a deep breath and let them go! Let them use the photo that you don’t prefer. Let them choose which story is more important and where it should go. Tell them what you think, nudge them the right way, but, in the end, let them decide. This way they know the newspaper or yearbook belongs to them. And they’ll do a good job because it reflects on them and their peers. The good students will love this freedom, and they’ll draw all of their good-student friends onto the staff right along with them. Those who goof off will wind up leaving on their own once they realize this is no place for lazy people – or, they’ll stay and stop goofing off!

You have to be content to know that the better you’re doing your job, the less your students will realize you’re doing anything at all. The most success will come when running the staff is not about you and the grade you give them but about the team and their goal as a group. So, give them guidance, give them praise, and then give them plenty of room – and watch how amazing they can be.