Motivation is one of the most important ways of determining success. What is the point of striving for something if a person cannot achieve some reward for his risk? It is why people invest money, why athletes train years for one shot at the Olympics, and why people put themselves in harm’s way to save another person. When someone sees value in risk, then he is motivated to pursue the reward. The same could be said for a student who is learning. When kids ask, “Why are we learning this?”, it is because there is a reward for getting the knowledge. It may not be a physical reward, but gaining knowledge or mastering a new skill has its own reward.
However, motivation must have a goal. Every time we set out on a venture, we need a goal. It keeps us aligned to the reward. It focuses our efforts so we can achieve something. In school, that goal might be to get a good grade on an assignment or class; it might be to graduate; or, it might be to simply learn something new. We all can remember a goal we set for ourselves that helped us in school. With the proper goal mindset, our children can find success in what they are learning.
He that tilleth his land shall be satisfied with bread… - Proverbs 12:11a
Mastery Goals
There are two main types of goals for every student - mastery and performance. When a student has a mastery goal, he or she is focused on learning new skills, improving overall, or acquiring knowledge. This is the goal that looks at the long term and asks how to become a better person through learning, including working through failures. We want our children to have these goals because they tend to cause students to invest more in learning. As a parent, it is important to show your child that he or she can achieve more and learn better by doing those things that may not find immediate satisfaction, but will help achieve lasting results in the long term. Some ideas that come to mind include practicing skills that might seem monotonous (think multiplication tables or the parts of speech) or irrelevant (reading books that don’t have to be read for class). By doing these, students challenge themselves to compete against themselves or expand their knowledge. I often get asked by students how I know so much across a breadth of subjects and I always tell them that I read…a lot; and I read about many different things. Why? Because I want to see how everything connects and how disparate bits of knowledge can help me learn more. So, challenge you child to keep learning, keep getting better at what he or she is doing, and keep “failing up”.
Performance Goals
Performance goals can be thought of as the ranking in a class or the grades on a test. We all remember studying for a test in school because we wanted to get a good grade. We each had our motivations, but the reason was to get the good grade. When the test was over, how much did you remember? Most of the goals students operate under fall in this category, and while they have a purpose, these goals are not the best. When these goals are not met, it can lead to a defeated mindset and compound with other failures. As a result, teachers and parents may find a frustrated child who thinks they are “stupid” because they failed. I want to remind every parent that failure is part of the learning process. While we all want our children to be the “A” student, we also need to remind them that those grades don’t always reflect the level of work put into learning. The more your child can master the material, the more consistently he or she will achieve higher grades in the long term, with the added benefit of actually knowing the material.
Without struggle there is no success. - Frederick Douglass
Help your child set goals in learning. Talk with your child’s teachers to create those plans. Show your child that he or she can learn, even in subjects that are lower on the likeable list. And, let them fail, let them struggle, let them persevere, let them know what success through adversity tastes like . When your child doesn’t understand a problem in his or her homework or gets something wrong on an assignment, that is the perfect opportunity to really teach because now you know exactly what he or she needs to learn. We want every child to love school and to excel in their studies, but the most important part of learning is to build a lifelong pursuit of the truth in each of their lives so that they can know God and impact this world for Him.
