How to motivate students

[Barnabas]

Award them with Pokemon, high test scoring students get a pokemon game that starts with a charizard, low scoring students get one with a magicarp.

 

[aeon]

My grades tend to fall into the D/C- range from high A's when I was allowed to be auto-didactic.

I do best as an autodidact when I have someone to bounce ideas off of and ask questions of. That said, even if I don

 

[MikeA]

Just my two cents:

when my teachers employ games to teach a lesson, the focus goes from mastery to ego. Less about knowing and more about feeling superior. My grades tend to fall into the D/C- range from high A's when I was allowed to be auto-didactic. While I understand teachers have limited resources when dealing with all their students' learning quirks, having multiple veins that allow variety is better (imo) than mass-appeal.

I went back to school a couple of years ago, and seriously, I thought I was about ready to kill myself. They had board games and what not prepared in English and Norwegian language studies, and the most unfuriating of all, I constantly had to correct my tutor's grammar. I was given a D- in both studies, so I asked them "What for?" to which they replied "Spite the fact that your English and Norwegian grades were deserving of at least an A-, you've frequently been skipping classes." Skipping classes is now a major factor to your abilities!

 

[Orion]

I hate it when teachers use the "end up flipping burgers" line. Is that SUCH a bad job? Someone has to do it. I don't like implying that everyone working at McDonalds is a failure at life.

It's funny because all the service jobs that make the world go round such as; cleaners, garbage collectors, bin men, burger flippers etc etc. are looked down upon, yet, where would we be if there wasn't anyone to do them? The world needs people to do these jobs, yet we simultaneously look down on them. The whole of industry and economics actually thrives on people apparently being failures.

 

[AhSver]

I think a good way is to drop out of school, put that McDonald's application to a good use. Get tired of it, get back to school. Get a degree and then come back to McDonald's proudly in this f-ed up economy...

[MENTION=1378]Orion[/MENTION] The world needs people to do these jobs, yet we simultaneously look down on them. The whole of industry and economics actually thrives on people apparently being failures.

Very true but it doesn't, unfortunately, make people in such industries very happy with where they at with their careers. It's hard to keep up the positive thinking.