Conclusion: Towards a motivation-sensitive teaching practice

Abstract

‘If you have read through the rest of the book before turning to this chapter, you may be feeling that the whole topic of motivation is much more complicated than you thought. You also may be daunted at the prospect of trying to integrate so many principles into your teaching. This is understandable.’ (Brophy 1998:254) Having surveyed a wide range of useful motivational strategies and techniques, we must now address the crucial question of what might be the best way of establishing a motivation-sensitive teaching practice. This is an important issue because one thing is fairly certain: for most readers simply starting with Strategy 1 in this book and then systematically going through every one of the long list of strategies is unlikely to be the best option. There is so much to pay attention to in the classroom: language content, teaching methodology, timing, administration, discipline, etc. that for many of us taking on another onerous ‘burden’ - i.e. to be on a constant ‘motivational alert’ - may be asking for too much. So what do we do? The ‘good enough motivator’ In an overview of group psychology for educational purposes, Madeline Ehrman and I (1998) have referred to D. W. Winnicott's (1965) concept of the ‘good enough mother’ as one that we found useful in understanding certain teacher functions. Winnicott's concept has been adopted by many psychologists, and extending it to parenting in general, Bruno Bettelheim (1987) has written a book entitled A Good Enough Parent. The concept of the ‘good enough parent’ suggests that in order to produce psychological health in the child, the parent does not need to be perfect. Instead, there is a minimum level of support needed for healthy development, including empathic understanding, soothing, protection and, of course, love.