Lack of Motivation

I approached this assignment drawing from my daily experience working at an alternative school in Wake County for students with behavioral and emotional disorders. Many if not all of the students have been placed at the alternative school due to the determination by their base schools and other administrative personnel that the alternative school is their Least Restrictive Environment. For whatever reason, the students are unwilling or unable to participate in the general education environment, and because all have Individualized Education Plans, they are entitled to an education at my school. This is often the last possible chance for them to receive an education before dropping out, being placed in jail, or entering a more restrictive environment like a residential facility or receiving instruction at home. After speaking with veteran staff at the school, I believe one of the primary obstacles to teaching these students is their own lack of motivation towards participating in the learning process. I believe that if students were to gain or develop an appreciation for learning, they would be more actively invested in their academic future as well as in developing a positive plan for their future.

I created my bubblus by thinking about from which sources inform values concerning learning. In all but the personal values, the individual is being affected by concepts outside of their locus of control. It may be impossible to determine which value source exerts the greatest influence on the student's attitude towards learning. Most likely this can only be determined on an individual basis, meaning no sweeping generalizations are made. One might argue that, at least initially, parents exert the greatest influence on their child's appreciation of learning, but it could be argued that because societal and cultural values informed the parent's opinion, this is more important. Of course, once the student reaches a certain age, peer influence is likely to overshadow parental influence to some extent; meanwhile that peer influence is also informed by societal and cultural influences.

For the purpose of this action research study, which is mostly concerned with older students, it may be useful for the researcher to limit the scope of the study to the personal values of the student; otherwise it would be easy to fall into a "chicken-and-egg" scenario. More so than with younger students, adolescent students are to a certain extent given choices about how to develop themselves morally, academically, and in other ways. It is practical for the researcher to assume that the "buck stops" with the individual; that is that the student is the ultimate decider of how they conceive of learning and how they want it to affect them.