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Janet Fausti
Marion School District
As a Special Education Teacher, I have spent a large amount of time with
colleagues discussing behavioral issues of students on my caseload. The teachers appear
to be unaware of why the behaviors are occurring and what to do with the students with
behavioral issues. The concerns range in scope from:1) what to do when a student won’t
attend to the lesson to 2) why isn’t a student doing their school work? Through RECESS
(Rural Educators Collaborating for the Success of Students) I focused the past year on
behavioral issues that students exhibit in the classroom as well as furthering my
understanding of the social and emotional issues that contribute to behavioral issues. I
focused on analyzing the reasons behind behavioral issues and the relationship between
behavior and academic performance.
Much of this year has been spent on reading various books on unmotivated
students. Some of these books have been Motivating Students Who Don’t Care by Allen
Mender, Motivating Students Left Behind, by Dr Richard Curwin, and Powerful
Classroom Management Strategies Motivating Students to Learn by Paul Burden. I also
attended the workshop Motivating Your Underachieving Learners presented by Mr. Ernie
Chapman. Previously I had also attended workshops by Corwin Kronenberg on
Classroom Management Strategies that Teach Responsibility as well as a workshop with
Sally Northway Ogden titled Bag O’Tricks for Stress Free Discipline which was based
on using strategies from Jim Fay and Foster Cline’s Love and Logic.
Through all of these resources, it has become clear that inappropriate behavior
and motivation are intrinsically bound. They go hand in hand. Many students who have
behavioral issues in the classroom are covering their concerns about being perceived as
stupid. They are protecting themselves from the embarrassment of looking dumb in the
eyes of their classmates, parents, and peers. Some students find power and control in
their refusal to work. They are often competent and capable, but their need to be in
control is so strong they employ a self-defeating strategy to exert their independence. No
one wants to try and fail – it is simply easier to not try at all. Lack of motivation is a
protective mechanism that must be respectfully challenged. If students are motivated
they are more likely to participate in activities and less likely to get off task and
contribute to disorder. An effective classroom manager deliberately plans for ways to
motivate students. Motivation is threatened when ineffective discipline interventions are
used. For example, a power struggle. Interventions need to focus less on behavior and
more on student’s willingness to learn.
Motivation is getting them to WANT to do their work. There are two broad
categories of motivation – intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation is a response to
needs that exist within the student, such as curiosity, the need to know, and feelings of
competence or growth. Intrinsic motivation is an internal satisfaction a student feels.
Extrinsic motivation is from outside the learner and has to do with external rewards for
completion of a task, for example, words of praise from the teacher, a privilege, and a
higher grade on a paper or the report card are examples. The reinforcement of practices
of extrinsic motivation can be effective, but the excessive use of rewards may be
decreasingly successful in new situations and may foster a dependency and undermine
intrinsic motivation. Ernie Chapman made a bold statement at his workshop that
extrinsic motivation is simply manipulation. I found that to be a real eye opener.
Techniques that involve rewarding or punishing are simply manipulation measures.
Rewards encourage students to work for extrinsic gain rather than wanting to learn.
Punishment or the threat of punishment also discourages learning. Others feel a teacher
should make everything taught as intrinsically interesting as possible and avoid handing
out material rewards when they are unnecessary. At the same time, others feel giving
extrinsic rewards when they are needed is acceptable and by weaning these away the
student begins to feel that intrinsic motivation kick in. Extrinsic rewards may be needed
after an activity that students find less intrinsically interesting and satisfying. It should
also be noted that a successful student will work hard to earn incentives because they
believe it is well within their grasp to get them – difficult students have learned through
experience that it is better for them not to try than to try and fail. If the difficult student is
working toward a reward they will often respond negatively because it is less hurtful to
lose it right away than to work hard and then lose it anyway – the student would rather be
in control of losing it than to turn that control over to the teacher.
Dr. Curwin feels there are four theoretical views of motivation.

Behavioral view – a person’s internal cognitive needs are not as important as the
reinforcers that are provided to control the behavior. Individuals are motivated
when their behavior is reinforced.

Cognitive view – people are motivate to understand the world, to have control
over their lives, and to be self-directed

Humanistic view – people are motivated by a need for growth and the
development of self. This view highlights intrinsic motivation

Achievement view – people are motivated to achieve something, such as the need
to achieve success and to avoid failure.
Although the categorical views of motivation are interesting, the question still lingered in
my mind. What do I as an educator do?
Allen Mendler states that being successful at motivating students who are difficult
requires teachers to believe:

All students are capable of learning when they have the academic and personal
tools to be successful.

Students are inherently motivated to learn but learn to be unmotivated when they
repeatedly fail.

Learning requires risk taking, so classrooms need to be safe places physically and
psychologically.

All students have basic needs to belong, to be competent, and to influence what
happens to them.

High self-esteem is result that comes with mastery of challenging tasks.

High motivation occurs when adults treat students with respect and dignity.
Through all these workshops and books there were a variety of strategies to use to
motivate students. However, the most important strategy I found in every article,
book, or workshop I have attended is to treat these most challenging students with
respect and dignity. Forming a relationship and bonding with these students is
essential! Simply put, these students must believe whole heartedly that I care about them.
I must continue to build that trust with them and show them repeatedly that I care. Once
the trust level is built then I can begin to implement a variety of strategies to help with
motivating these students.
I have many students who participate in negative self talk. They are “special ed”
students so they must be stupid (my student’s words). After attending the workshop on
Motivating Your Underachieving Learner, I decided to teach a complete unit on character
traits to one of my reading groups. Many of the students in this group have a lower self
esteem because they realize they are not at the level of their peers in reading. Being in
the resource room is often viewed as a negative. These students often participate in “I
can’t” conversations. The hope is that they will begin to think differently about
themselves. Students who believe in themselves will be stronger individuals. I provided
each student with the personal creed from the workshop to be used as a fluency passage.
Students built a positive vocabulary to continually reinforce an affirmative self concept
that they will work to fulfill. Throughout this lesson students continuously asked for
clarification on vocabulary. This resulted in many conversations between peers and story
telling. They began to see themselves in an optimistic way. They began to realize that
with hard work they could do anything they believed in. They soon were helping each
other see that they needed to take ownership of their own feelings and beliefs. One
student in particular stated in a discussion with me “I guess if I don’t think I can do it
then how can you think I can do it?” My response was “I always knew you could do it –
I believe in you – but the question is do you believe in yourself?” The next day this
student shared with me that she had gone home and thought about the conversation and
she realized that all the excuses she made were just that – excuses.
I have also spent time talking with each student on how they view school, what
were positive school character traits they showed?, and what were areas they needed to
work on. I interviewed the students and asked each student to complete a simple rubric
entitled How to Get Good Grades. This format opened up discussion with each student.
One student concern was simply that she didn’t know how to study. This lead me to
question if regular education staff were teaching study skills. After asking the staff most
relayed they do teach study skills within context. I am not sure students understand
specifically how to study for a test. Yes, the teachers make flashcards or outlines but
how do students use these to study is what I feel the students were asking. I will continue
to work on how to help staff teach study skills in the classroom so students understand
how to study for a test.
I have begun using more study skills and pointing out how taking notes is
essential for homework completion and studying. For example, in math class (pull-out) I
now have students take notes. Theses notes consist of the definition of a process along
with a working example. The last session for example was on finding area and perimeter.
The students each needed to write down “Perimeter = finding the total of the outside of a
polygon. The “t” in perimeter reminds us to add.” The students then needed to draw an
example of a polygon and how to solve for perimeter. We then moved onto area. The
students were prompted to write in their notebooks “Area = the amount of space inside a
polygon. Length X Width” The students again drew an example in their notebook.
When we solved for area or perimeter they were asked what operation was needed. They
referred to their notebooks to figure it out. I pointed out that they were taking notes in
class – this is a study skill – to help them when they are working independently. They
also have the steps to adding fractions, subtracting fractions, multiplying fractions, and
dividing fractions. They continue to add on to their “notes” and refer to them often in
class discussions. They have begun to realize that if they take good notes they will be
able to work independently when staff is not present. Today we started a new unit on
mean, median, mode, and range. One of the students quickly reminded the others
something new was going to be taught and they should all get their notebooks out to take
notes. It is refreshing when students realize there is a purpose to taking notes.
Another area I have worked on that each of the books and workshops I attended
touched upon was goal setting. Motivation is facilitated when students create attainable
goals that are specific. One of the follow up projects I did after returning from the
workshop Motivating Your Underachieving Learner was to have 6th grade students write
a letter to the high school principal. In our district K-6 is in one building and 7-12 in
another building. This exercise was tri-fold. One goal of the project was to facilitate the
initial relationship building that is necessary between staff and students. Another goal of
the project was to have students do some self reflection on their positive character traits.
The last goal was to have students do some goal setting in an area they felt they needed to
improve on. The letter was to have three paragraphs. The first paragraph addressed their
positive character traits. It was wonderful to see all of the students (even those staff
would consider unmotivated) write and acknowledge their positive character traits. The
second paragraph was to acknowledge an area that students needed to work on to
improve themselves. It was very difficult for one of my students who has chronic late
assignments to set a goal for herself. She clearly realized this was an area she needed
help with but had no idea on the steps needed to take to reach that goal. The breakdown
for her was in how to go about achieving this goal. It should also be noted the mother of
this student responded to staff at parent teacher conferences “I figured that” when told her
daughter had many late assignments therefore the report card showed incompletes. It was
astonishing that in essence the mother gave her daughter permission for late assignments
because little else was expected. The student at this time was completing 45% of
assignments on time and she is now at 82% of assignments completed on time. The
student and I sat together and worked through what was working and what wasn’t and
how to change what wasn’t working. I ended up writing an IEP goal for this student on
working through the problem solving steps. This is an area she needs work on in both
academic and social situations. We meet once a week to go over a goal and what worked
and didn’t work with the goal setting.
This particular student’s mother felt that an
extrinsic motivator would work for her daughter. The mother wanted to set up a goal for
her for every 5 days of homework completion the student would earn a “reward”. The
student and I sat down and discussed possible rewards. Some of them came from home
(mom would buy her a book, mom would spend time with her ice skating, she could have
a friend over) and some from school (the student wanted to invite a friend to the resource
room to play a game). The student has since earned 3 of these rewards. First chose to
have a friend come the resource room, then a book from mom, and the 3rd reward was to
have a friend over. Mom has yet to follow through on this reward. This particular
incident was interesting because many experts say that extrinsic rewards are
manipulation. However, I have seen the intrinsic satisfaction on this young girl’s face
when she talks about getting her homework done – she feels good about herself. She also
needs social skills work, so bringing a friend to hang out in the resource room is helpful
to her on a different level. In this case, as with many cases I feel the extrinsic rewards are
needed to build a positive feeling in the student. Extrinsic rewards work if they are faded
away slowly and the intrinsic motivation is allowed to build.
One area I still want to work on is teamong with regular education staff on
modeling how to match learning styles with teaching styles. Many staff want help and
appear to not understand how to change what they do in the classroom to reach all
students. I had two particular incidents arise this year with this issue. Both of these
involve students with autism. The first was a first grade student who exhibited a lot of
screaming in the classroom. The teacher and I talk weekly and many suggestions were
given to her. However, after much frustration for both the student and the teacher I
decided it may be best to remove the student for a good portion of his day so I could
work with him to see what the issues may actually be. The ideal situation would be for
me to go into the regular education classroom to observe, model, and teach both the
student and staff but with the number of students I currently have I was unable to do that.
I spent a month with this student and I heard many comments over this month from him
that “I don’t take test, I don’t do all that work, etc”. However, I broke down each task for
the student, explained calmly that all students were required to work and when he was
done he could have a break. I used work strips with this student for everything he had to
do. Each work strip ended with a break card. At first the student would fight everything
I wanted him to do but by remaining calm and teaching him that the work strip had ___
number of items on it before he got a break (extrinsic reward). The student quickly
caught on to this idea. He began to do everything asked of him and if I would not have a
work strip ready he asked for it. Clearly this student needed to know his expectations.
After working with this student it became clear he is above his peers in
mathematics. He was exhibiting behavior issues in the classroom due to boredom. It
wasn’t that he wasn’t able – he was simply bored – a statement he made often but staff
ignored. He is also on a higher end in reading. However, in the classroom he wouldn’t do
reading and he exhibited many ticks when reading with his teacher. This student exhibits
many sensory issues as well so part of the problem is his environment and part is the
curriculum being too easy. The student stayed with me for several weeks and then was
introduced back into the classroom full time. When I brought my findings or thoughts to
the regular education teacher – that the student was indeed bored in math and my
recommendation was to give him more challenging work she was concerned that it would
be so difficult to differentiate the lessons. This is clearly an example of a student
learning style conflicting with a teaching style. Teachers must adapt to a changing
classroom environment with the increase in students with autism. Currently this student
is working with a different regular education teacher for math at a second grade level.
Another example of this is a 5th grade student with autism. This student was
having issues in math. The regular education teacher stated the student has a lot of
behavior issues particularly in math because the student wasn’t paying attention. I have
been in the classroom on numerous occasions to observe math time. The student fidgets
appropriately when I am in the classroom. When the student’s IEP came due I spoke
with the teacher and of course the math issue came up. I tried speaking with the teacher
that his teaching style (lecture for most of the 75 minute time period) and the student’s
learning style (kinesthetic) just were not matching up. The teacher sees no other way to
do math. I have given the teacher suggestions only to be told he can’t see how doing
small group work in math would work. He also doesn’t see how he has time to work one
on one with this particular student. I ended up writing an IEP goal that stated the student
would actively participate in math class in 3 out of 4 attempts per class period. I have
given the teacher suggestions on prompting the student. For example, in one minute I
will be back to ask you to answer question number 7. The teacher goes on with his
lesson and when he gets to number 7 he calls on the student. At first the teacher
responded if he asked the student to do number 7 he wouldn’t be listening to numbers 4,
5, or 6. However, I simply responded number 7 was the same as the other problems and
if the student can do number 7 he should be able to do the others. It was also a way for
the teacher to see what the student did in number 7 to decide if the student needed further
help and what the help would be. If teachers never work one on one with the student they
won’t know where the breakdown occurs. The student is beginning to volunteer in class
– he feels he must know the answers and maybe math isn’t so hard. Sometimes teachers
need to prompt the student to initially participate in class – once the student feels like he
is understanding and an active member he will increase his participation on his own!
Both of the above examples are areas I need to continually focus on.
Inappropriate behavior is often seen as lack of motivation. People are of the notion that
the students “won’t” but with autism it is more often the students “can’t”. With the
increase in the number of students in our district with autism it is essential that I continue
to educate myself in order to reach staff to change their belief that it isn’t “won’t” but
“can’t”. I have been attending many in-services on autism this year and I am in the
process of putting together in-services for staff training as well as working on bringing in
training opportunities for staff. I will collaborate with administration on how to get
myself in the classroom to model how to appropriately set up a child for success. Staff
are not necessarily unwilling to work with difficult students – they need modeling on how
to do so. My goal for next year is to work directly with students and staff in the
classroom more often to prevent many of the breakdowns in communication and
therefore have less behavior referrals to me. I would also like to work on a prompting
guide on what staff can do for behavioral issues. Behavior is simply a reaction for the
student – what is the issue and how we react to it is the key. Overall, I feel our building
is on the right track with teaching responsibility in students. As a district we use Corwin
Kronenberg’s model of building relationships with children. We have school wide
behavior expectations with the Above the Line Behavior Program. We teach children to
be respectful, responsible, and safe within our buildings. We model what appropriate
behavior looks like. However, one of the areas our building needs to work on is finding
appropriate consequences or fix-its for behavior. We struggle with finding consequences
or fix-it plans that are related, respectful and relevant. I feel I am strong on my
motivational techniques – now the question for me is how do I help other staff? I also
want to work on connecting with parents of students who are unmotivated. How can I
help them help their child? My focus will also be on behavioral interventions for
students with autism as that will be the majority of my caseload in the upcoming year.