Motivating Students Who Don't Care: Successful Techniques for Educators

by Allen N. Mendler

Motivating Students Who Don t Care is a comprehensive and practical guide for reconnecting with discouraged students and reawakening their excitement and enthusiasm for learning. With proven strategies from the classroom, this resource identifies five effective processes the reader can use to reawaken motivation in students who aren t prepared, don t care, and won t work. These processes include emphasizing effort, creating hope, respecting power, building relationships, and expressing enthusiasm. Each process is fully explained and illustrated with proven strategies from the classroom. Questions for reflection will help the reader identify motivating strategies and apply the five key processes to the challenge of changing students lives.

Genres: Education, Teaching, School, Nonfiction, Professional Development

126 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2000

Reviews

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent little guide for teachers. It gives very simple but powerful techniques to help motivate students who do not care about school. I read this every August and it is truly effective and a gem.

[Terese Ghilarducci · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good suggestions for even the most seasoned teachers and for me too as a counselor

[ياسمين هاني · Rating 3 out of 5]

هو جيد لكن بيفكرني بالأساليب بتاعت التليفزيون والأفلام التي تصور المعلم الجيد المؤثر في طلابه
لذلك السبب كانت النصائح تكرار بالنسبة لي
لكن اقتراحات الكتاب جيدة ومفيدة

قرأت الكتاب بسبب طالبة والله يصلح حالنا وحالها
ويقدرني على عمل الصواب معها.

(ما احد مهتم بقصتي الجانبية لكن عملية القراءة اسبابها اكثر متعة احيان وهذا يعطي الكتاب شعور مختلف)

[David Stephens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Educator and school psychologist Allen Mendler attempts to give some quick tips—in a brief sixty-five pages—on how to motivate lethargic students lest they burn teachers out in his book Motivating Students Who Don’t Care. He reminds readers that everyone is born curious and motivated until he or she learns to be otherwise and lists three common causes of students’ lack of motivation: their desire to maintain independence, to cover perceived incompetence, and depression. These are definitely important things for teachers to keep in mind before they lay into students for neglecting to do their work.

Mendler provides several applicable plans and assignments to encourage students to work that all fall under one of five categories: emphasizing effort, creating hope, respecting power, building relationships, and expressing enthusiasm. These ideas range from giving students more choices to giving a separate grade for effort to finding time to talk to students about personal issues. The book’s best advice deals with increasing communication between teachers and students. This could mean teachers giving quicker feedback, thoroughly explaining the relevancy of assignments, involving students in class decisions more often, or finding the good aspects of the work problematic students submit. Unfortunately, other advice is pretty dismal. I’m all for praising students but activities like the kindness train where students pass around notecards with positive messages to each other make me cringe.

So, while the book doesn’t break any new ground, it at least offers reminders of things that can easily be lost amidst an all too frequent aura of apathy and laziness in the classroom.

[Debbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for insight and suggestions to use with apathetic students (a growing problem). I was disappointed as I didn't feel this book really had much to offer.

[Rebecca Morrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not the worst teaching book I've ever read and I do say that there were gems to be found throughout. However, it rang through with an out of touch former educator. For example of one his pointers is to call students, not parents, but students. Unless you're dealing with college students, this is unacceptable. You're opening the door to unprofessionalism here and for students to think they blindly trust all teachers. Predators are out there, and they must be aware of the first lines those monsters cross to report sooner. Overall, it will help me in my journey, and I tried some of what was suggested to success.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am already doing most of the suggestions found in this book. There are some...like calling a student at hone yot all to them directly about their behavior, to give them motivation, or to talk about how to improve something they did in the classroom that I will never do. I will pull the student out or talk to the student at school, but I am not ever calling the student directly. I also call home to talk to parents. Dry read with many things teachers should already be doing.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you have been teaching less than five years, in a community where there are familial support and financial resources, this book will be very helpful.

I’m 17 years in and at a middle school where the needs of students far outweighs the expertise of staff at a normal public school. Pre-Covid, it might have been helpful. Post-Covid, it is not.

[Khomid Mukhtorov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Очень интересная книга. Рекомендую другим. Не трате время зря.

[Chua · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of great tips for educators to help students. All educators should read this.

[Scott Rushing · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a helpful little book. I am making a note to implement some of these strategies this year, and review it regularly.

[Christy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Has great tips and information in the book. It’s just a really dry read.

[Tracy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book Study, same old stuff, lots of no thank you’s

[Emily Torvik · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn't call the strategies or concepts presented in this book "fresh," though I might recommend it to a pre-service teacher or one in their first three years of teaching.

[Audra · Rating 2 out of 5]

helpful to an extent but also hard to put into practice when you have pushing 30 kids and theyre all unmotivated

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Succinct book with practical advice. Experienced teachers likely know much of what is in the book. However we earned this info the hard way, experience. It would be fantastic book for early teachers, like less than 5 years. And even after over 10 years, it never hurts to have a reminder of different ways to motivate students.

Recommended by Stef Sims' 5 Star review

[Maha · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب مميز خاصة لمعلمي التعليم العام ، شخصيا لم اجد الفائدة الكبيرة للتعليم العالي
سوى في مناقشة اهداف الطالبة الاكاديمية والعلمية لتحفيز الاداء

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very short book(65 pgs) with five different approaches to get students to learn what you want to teach them. The approaches are:
* Emphasize Effort
* Creating Hope
* Respecting Power
* Building Relationships
* Expressing Enthusiasm
Within these approaches are some good tips such as working two minutes per day for 10 days to build a relationship with the student and telling the chronically late student that though you will probably keep bringing the issue up, you are happy to have him/her the 50 minutes in class s/he is there. Also a great point made: there is very little teacher can force students to do these days, so why not gentle them along?

There was a tip about calling home and leaving praise messages for students so they would be most likely to hear it when they get home after school, which I don't think was such good advice, but other than that, a great quick read.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good book for new teachers that emphasizes much of what I believe is important for motivating students. Creating relationships is absolutely essential. Just as adults don't like being a number in the DMV line, kids don't want to be a number at school. Unfortunately, this book really is targeted to high school when the problem of low motivation starts much younger. The author also seems to believe the mumbo jumbo that some students don't work because they are bored. It is easier to say you are bored than to admit to the other issues that impede your progress. (I say this as a person who was not challenged by most of the classes I took. I took extra classes and got involved in extracurricular activities so that I wasn't bored.) A bored student is unlikely to be willing to teach a future unit of study, nor will they do a good job. It is unfair to the rest of the students to allow them to waste precious class time.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very quick read with some good ideas. Most of it is pretty much "duh" but it did reinforce some things and gave reasons as to why. As with most of education theory, you can't really get to specific because each student and situation is different.

[Marty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not the proper audience. also while I agree with some of the ideals expressed, I think it lacks nitty gritty. I always hate it when a teaching book says and gee so you measure and there's your math content as if measuring is all there is.....

[Julie Aquilina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very short book. Hence, only skims the surface of engagement / behaviour management techniques. In fact, most were teacher mind-set modification suggestions. However, did pull a couple strategies for my toolbox.

[Dioscita · Rating 3 out of 5]

My principal gave us all a copy of this book (it's more like a booklet of approximately 70 pages) as a common complaint in my building is "student apathy."

[Tama]

Reading this one to help get ideas on how to motivate middle school students who really care. So far it is just a reminder of what the kids are looking for - interesting and applicable lessons.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have applications to parenting too. This book gave me some ideas to use when creating library information sessions for our CCBC students.

[Kellee Moye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of this book was strategies I already use, but he also gave me many new great ideas. A wonderful resource for teachers teaching unmotivated students.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an excellent, quick read that I would recommend for any new teacher. I say new teacher because most of this seasoned teachers probably already know or do.

[Lacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few good insights, but a lot of it was obviously true.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some great yet simple techniques and excellent reminders of what is really important in the classroom.

[Nada · Rating 5 out of 5]

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