As the new school year quickly approaches, I find myself thinking about the typical things – what will my new students be like? Will they be excited to learn? How can I get them excited if they aren’t already?

I read an article on a blog today about motivating students. In it, the author was reflecting on how she had commented about “the Texas’ education commissioner’s suggestion that businesses refuse to hire high school dropouts. His argument was that this would send a strong message to teenagers that they need to earn their diplomas to get decent jobs.” One of the author’s readers, a social worker-turned-computer-applications-teacher at Quintanilla Middle School in the Dallas Independent School District, suggested a different method. You can read about his idea here and learn even more on the teacher’s website here. So go read that and then come back here.

Ok, you read it? What did you think?

I’m wondering about how I can have my students write similar letters to themselves as a motivational tool. I’ve been thinking about having my students all create blogs this year – we’ve done that before for a specific assignment but not as an ongoing project. But what if students wrote an initial letter (post) to themselves at the beginning of the year and then kept that going for three years of posting – the length of time that they will be in my career area. This idea is truly in the beginning stages. I’m not sure what I’d have them post about for example. I want the experience to be meaningful for them.  But how cool would it be for a student at the end of their senior year to be able to read his or thoughts/dreams/goals from 10th grade year? I think the potential reflection possibilities here would be very powerful.  Any ideas?

Tags: goals, motivation