I was reminded of that iconic line from the movie A League of Their Own when I was watching my son's little league baseball game recently. Two boys at two separate times left the field in tears. One pitched for the first time and grew upset that the other team scored five runs that inning. The second struck out and subsequently ended the game without allowing the two boys on base to score. Both times there were tears. Both times I listened to the coach give a motivational speech to get the nine year-olds to rally.
"Look at me," I heard the coach say as the boy buried his head into the crux of his arm. "Look at me!" The boy finally obliged "When I pitched for the first time, I hit a kid in the arm and broke his arm. I broke a kid's arm. You pitched strikes. I broke a kid's arm. Think about that." The nine year-old eventually was smiling, but it took a lot of motivation including a story about a broken arm (which I wasn't sure was entirely true) to get him there. This moment served as a catalyst for me in thinking about how we all are motivated, about how I motivate the students in my classroom, and how I, myself, am motivated.
Somehow everywhere I turned this month, someone was talking to me about motivation. A former student sent me an article by a sportswriter, Jared Carrabis, who covers the Boston Red Sox. The article discussed how Carrabis worked his way up to covering the World Series winning team. He wrote about his motivation to get to the top even when those around him doubted his abilities. While I am not a Red Sox fan, and it was a tough article to swallow four days prior to their World Series win, I read it to its entirety and was motivated because a student I taught five years ago thought enough to send it my way, as he knew I would like the message behind it. And he was right; in that article, Carrabis wrote, "I tell everyone to create their own opportunities." That's what I thought about this month as I explored this idea of motivation. Create your own opportunities.
And then I faced a question I have never been asked in twenty years of teaching and one I felt tongue tied in answering. It was a question not even Google could answer. "Mrs. Pace, in your long experience as a teacher, have you seen a lot of cases of senioritis? I don't know how to get motivated." The student asked this question in all seriousness with intention, curious as to how he could change the lack of motivation he was experiencing this year. I found myself at a loss of words. I've taught seniors the past seven years, and every year I see students who seem not to be as motivated as the years before, as if some kind of disease is paralyzing them. And maybe it is. I've seen seniors desire that graduation date in October, and I've even seen juniors try to do what they can just to get by. School sometimes seems like it's a rite of passage, a hoop to jump through in order to get to what we really want. I wish I had some kind of cure for the lack of motivation. I wish there is something I could say that would bring back that drive. I had nothing. No story of a broken arm when pitching could motivate these seniors. No story of how I stayed motivated when I was in high school twenty-five years ago could motivate them either. I felt like I was failing them as a teacher, and the group who stood around me was still waiting for an answer.
I'm still not sure how to answer that question, and quite frankly, I don't remember what I said. I'm not sure how I motivate my students. I'm not sure how I get you to smile when you're in my room and enjoy writing or reading (although I'm aware that some of you never do enjoy either one), but I'm motivated every day to try. I have ninety days to teach you what I am most passionate about. Ninety days. When you look at it like that, it's not a very long time. So, instead of wishing the days away, appreciate where you are in the moment. Find some reason to embrace the life you are currently living, not the one you will live next year or the year after that. Create your own opportunities.
Think of what you've accomplished in this past month alone. Juniors, you've completed your first major writing assignment (along with many other smaller ones) in IB English. You re-enacted the iconic "Stellaaaaah!" scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. Cumulatively you read or are reading 257 books this quarter.
So, I suppose the only thing I can tell anyone who feels unmotivated or who is impaled by the symptoms of senioritis is to get vaccinated by creating your own opportunities. Find something to hold onto and breathe life into. Maybe that's your biology homework. Maybe it's the work you do in inspiring young kids. Maybe it's your commitment to marching band or football or DECA.
I don't often stray from the classic rock I listen to, but the lyrics of "Whatever It Takes" by Imagine Dragons have been circulating in my head recently: "Don't wanna be the parenthetical, hypothetical / Working hard on something that I'm proud of."
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