The Essence of Motivation

What goes around comes around and nowhere is this more true than in education.

As schools begin to look beyond the idea that to teach children we simply need to teach them – like a champion or otherwise – the ideas around developing internal motivation in my book Essential Motivation in the Classroom come back into view.

Which is why the publishers, Routledge, have asked me to prepare a third edition, 23 years later.

As I put the finishing touches to the new introductions for each of the seven chapters, update some of the references, check for mentions of famous people in prison or dead or both, and tweak the original text for a new generation of teachers, I thought it would be useful to share a little taste of the 'seven keys to motivation' from the book.

See what you think:

1. Seeing the point of what we’re doing.
2. Enjoying doing it.
3. Doing it because we want to do it.
4. Having the sense that what we are doing is relevant and useful.
5. Feeling that we are doing it with people who value us.
6. Not feeling excessively stressed or scared when we do it.
7. Knowing that by attempting it, we can make things better.

The new edition is just entering the production phase (a process that always seems to take forever) and should be out at the end of the year.

Can't wait...