R-E-S-P-E-C-T
The inextricable relationship between motivation and respect in education
When you ask someone what it is that motivates them, you very rarely get the correct answer. Some people say that they are motivated by money. Some people say they are motivated by the opportunity for power or prestige. However, what really motivates people is something a little more positive, in my opinion. I truly believe that what motivates humans the most is respect. Respect contains within it an admiration for the good qualities that another person possesses. When you give someone respect, you are validating what that person believes is good about themselves. Respect, when properly earned and appreciated, is a win-win situation for both the giver and the receiver. When it is not present in a given relationship, problems will inevitably arise.
Types of Respect
Before I discuss what respect has to do with motivation and education, a brief examination of the different types of respect is needed. The first type of respect is classified as a cultural value. Different cultures around the world hold respect in varying levels of regard, but what defines this type of respect is the way that it is earned. Respect as a cultural value is earned by age or position. The older a person is, or the higher their position in society, the greater amount of respect they should be given. In Asia, this type of respect is so common that it is built into the language as honorifics and in fact most people in Japan, where I currently live, find it hard to have a conversation with anyone until they know how that person relates to them by age or position. In the West, asking someone you just met about their age is considered rude, but in the East this question is necessary to provide the important information someone needs to choose the words they will use to talk to you. Similarly, business cards are extremely important in Japan because they provide an immediate signifier of one’s position. However, whether respect is given based on age or position, this type of respect is not really earned through one’s actions, and it has little to do with our discussion here. Unfortunately, respect as a cultural value can lead to confusion and cause us to overlook the role that a different kind of respect can play as an intrinsic motivator on a more personal level.
This second type of respect I am referring to is the one important to this discussion. The second type of respect is associated with a person’s worth based on their actions. I believe that this type of respect is so important, and so intimately connected to who we are, because it is born with us. It is as important as any emotion or psychological feature of what makes us human. When children are born, one of the first things they do is imprint the face of their parents into their mind and begin the miraculous journey of learning all about the world around them. This journey happens through exploration and play but it is all done under the watchful eye of the parent. When the child gets to be about four years old, theory of mind develops and children start to understand that other people have thoughts too. From this time onward, the motivation for anything a child does is based largely on whether the parent “approves” of what they are doing. Through an elaborate game of “do this and do that” that plays out over time, humans are conditioned to seek approval for their actions. As we mature, that approval slowly changes in both who we seek it from and why we seek it. By the time we start school, we start to seek the approval of teachers, who are stand-ins for our parents. Then, as we get older, we give more and more importance to whether our peers approve of our actions. This approval starts to become “respect” when we no longer do it for approval, but rather to seek affirmation of our positive traits or actions from an important interlocutor we admire in some way. By the time we are adults, we have come full circle and have the ability to be both givers and receivers of respect. The importance of this responsibility can not be overstated. It is this responsibility, this act of earning and giving respect, that has to be at the center of a teacher’s professional day-to-day job description.
“…the hidden curriculum…is the one where we teach our students how to earn respect”
The Hidden Curriculum
The other day I was having a conversation with a fellow professor at school when the subjects of empathy and accountability came up. I have already posted here about the important role of empathy, and I have written about the importance of accountability here, so I will not repeat myself in this article. However, that discussion reminded me about how teachers need to understand the feelings and responsibilities that students bring with them if they want to be successful educators. Included in this concept is the idea that teachers need to be aware that students have an innate feeling of wanting to gain respect that has been ingrained in them since birth. In other words, the hidden curriculum that I am referring to in the heading to this section is the one where we teach our students how to earn respect in the most effective ways.
In that same discussion with my colleague, I was using the image of dangling the carrot in front of the horse to keep him moving. I was saying that if the carrot is too close, or too far away, our job as a teacher will fail. We have to constantly be balancing all that we do so that we keep that educational “carrot” at just the right distance in front of the students. Most educators will imagine that the carrot is the content of the subject that they are teaching, and in part that is correct. However, I believe that the greatest portion of that carrot is respect. In other words, most teachers might believe that helping students to have a good enough understanding of a subject will lead to high grades on tests, and that in turn will lead to success - learn to jump through the hoops and everybody wins. But if that is all a teacher does, they are failing the students. A teacher’s job is not only to teach content, but also to teach students how to be successful. The recent trend towards rewarding every student regardless of how well they have performed places the carrot so close that there is no need for students to learn how to persevere. There is also no way to learn the difference between a respectable effort and a less respectable one. Constant praise is not a form of respect. At the opposite end of the spectrum, telling students to study hard in order to start preparing for university entrance years in advance places the carrot so far away that they lose focus on the skills they need to learn now. In this case, students learn how to study a lot rather than how to study effectively.
To explain this in further detail, imagine that the way you measure success for your students is only by how high they score on your assignments and tests in class. If that is the case, does it matter at all how they achieve those high scores? It may matter to you, but if a student can achieve that high score by looking at old tests or cramming all night before an exam, that is probably what they will do. If they do that are they truly successful? Are those students worthy of your respect? Personally, I passed some tests in high school and university by cramming the night before. When I received the grade, and the begrudging respect of the teacher, I felt great. However, the fact that I immediately forgot most of what was on those tests left me with little self-respect. In other words, if my goal would have been to gain respect from my teacher (and from myself) by studying and preparing properly, I would have been much better off in the future.
“Aiming for respect leads to learning respectable habits”
Fostering Respect in Student-Teacher Relationships
When we understand how effective respect can be when used as a motivational tool, we can then start finding ways to help our students create good habits. When a student is aiming for the respect of the teacher or their peers, the only way they can reach their goals is by behaving in a respectable way and developing respectable habits.
The first way that respect can be fostered in the classroom is to compliment students on effort as much as, or more than, you do for results. When a student has given an honest effort, that needs to be acknowledged immediately. In my experience with beginner ESL (English as a second language) classes, results can be hard to come by. Learning languages is hard and sometimes hours of effort will result in only incremental gains. Respecting the effort shows students that the way of getting there can actually be more important than the final outcome.
The second way that respect can be created is for the teacher to learn as much as possible about the students outside of class. In my classes, journal writing is used to promote fluency and vocabulary development but these journals can also be a means for the teacher to learn about talents or achievements that student do not share in class. Many times I have read journal entries written by students about things they have created or talents that they possess, and my response is always to show them an honest respect for those achievements. In this way, the students see that I do not only see them as a member of class, but as a more rounded human being that deserves respect in areas beyond mere language ability. I have discussed the effectiveness of journals in language programs here, so feel free to follow that link for more information on their use.
A third way for teachers to be more successful in using respect in their relationships with students is to be a role model for how to receive respect. By this I mean that teachers should not take for granted their role in the teacher-student relationship and simply expect students to respect them. Teachers have to actively seek their students’ respect. Nothing will kill a student’s motivation faster than a teacher who does not deserve their respect. Each teacher will have to develop their own methods in this regard but for me, I try to display empathy by sharing my own journey in learning the Japanese language. As a language learning role model, I can help students see how there are no quick and easy ways to learn a language. Students can respect my effort and see that when they make a similar effort, they can in turn gain my respect.
Finally, respect is gained when a teacher is fair and holds students accountable. Students who do not make respectable efforts should not be praised and when students see that cheating or taking the easy way out will not gain them anything they will be more likely to put in a good effort. When this happens, they must be rewarded promptly by a show of respect. It is not mean or negative to give an accurate evaluation to a student about their effort. In fact, great care should be made to be as accurate as possible because most students are a better judge of their efforts than the teachers are. When a student receives respect when they do not deserve it, or the reverse situation of no respect being given for a valiant effort, problems can arise.
The Last Word
As a teacher in Japan, it has taken me a long time to adjust my sensibilities to become a better teacher in a foreign culture. For example, when I was a teacher in Canada, I gained respect from a group of unresponsive students by being more casual and friendly. In Japan, the act of being too familiar in the classroom can actually result in a lack of respect in most cases. In addition, I have thought that I had immediately gained respect from students here in Japan because the default setting is for students to go out of their way to show respect for people who are older or in a higher position. The reality was not always what it seemed. Instead, no matter where you teach, you have to create respect based on actions that matter. The journey that students and teachers take together needs to be built on mutual respect, not only for the goal of learning content, but more importantly for the goal of learning the skill of how to earn respect. Once those students move on to their professional lives after their formal education ends, they will not only be good at earning respect, they will be good at giving it.
Oh, and one final skill they will learn, which is probably the most important, they will learn when someone has stopped respecting them and is taking them for granted. Then they will know that it is time to move on and take their skills where they will have the appropriate level of respect and appreciation.