Raising the Roof for Metaphors: My Struggle to Motivate My Students

    In my first teaching job, I found myself teaching eighth grade remedial reading at Fairfield Middle School in Henrico County. After interviewing with more than a dozen school systems all summer long, I was hired the day before school started. I was twenty-two, naive to believe I could make a difference, and living a dream I had since I was seven years old when I played school with the stuffed animals in my basement. My new colleagues were excited to learn from me; they started to ask me questions about the teaching of reading, thinking I was a reading specialist because of what I was hired to teach. The truth? I never even took a "how to teach reading" course in my undergraduate degree, and I had no idea how to motivate young readers who were reading on a fourth grade level in the eighth grade. The honest truth? I was scared. I told my new colleagues I was far from a reading specialist, met with the school division's English specialist, read a lot of books on teaching low-level readers, and began a journey looking straight ahead, determined to motivate these young kids.

       I'd like to say I got every kid in that classroom reading on grade level, but that didn't happen. I'd like to say that when I took my students to the library, they couldn't wait to check out a book, but that didn't happen either. My students genuinely hated reading because they couldn't read well. At their age, I would walk to the public library from my house at least once a week and spent hours picking out books. So I couldn't relate to the idea of being unmotivated to read. I decided I needed to think smaller and work with them on some of the basic reading skills they needed. I also realized that I needed to get on their level.

     One day, I was teaching them the difference between a simile and a metaphor. They had been learning poetry in their eighth grade English classes and were struggling. I sensed the struggle and frustration in the room as I started asking my students questions. And so, I altered my plan for the day and decided to have some fun with what they were learning. "Okay guys," I said. "Every time you hear me read a simile in the poem, I want you to raise your hand, and every time you hear a metaphor, I want you to raise the roof for metaphors." I mimicked the "raise the roof" motion with my hands over my head, and all of the sudden they understood, as they raised the roof at appropriate times, smiles donning their faces. Laughter erupted, and I realized for the first time they really were learning. In the middle of the class, my principal, Dr. Ford, walked in. To describe my first principal, he was tall, commanded the presence of any room he entered, and I was petrified of him. He looked at me, and in an angry tone said to me, "Miss Nagle, what in the world are you doing in here?"

     I didn't know how to answer his question. I didn't know how to tell him that I am doing what I always dreamed of doing, and that these kids are getting it--really getting it. I didn't know how to say that for the first time, these kids seemed motivated, and it was all because I asked them to have a little fun while doing so. I inhaled deeply, looked him in the eyes as the class silenced itself, half of the students' arms still suspended in the air over their heads. "Dr. Ford," I said, "With all due respect, sir, we're raising the roof for metaphors." He took a step back, stunned that what was going on in that room was not chaos, but indeed, real learning. He joined in my crusade to raise the roof for metaphors.

     I think back on that moment often even twenty-three years later. Those kids were motivated that day because I got on their level. I took the time to understand the way they learn. I made reading fun in a world where they never believed it to be. Even the principal thought we were goofing off instead of learning. In twenty-one years of teaching, I've watched various instructional methods come and go, but the one that has never left my classroom is how to motivate students by connecting with them. Yet, the longer I am in this profession, the harder motivating students seems to be. Maybe it's because there are many more vices that distract students including texting and social media. Maybe it's because society puts so much more pressure on young people today to be everything and do everything. Maybe it's because I am older and sometimes have a hard time getting on your level. Whatever it is, I constantly change teaching practices or create new ones based on what I think will motivate you, my students. Allow me to explain...

     How do you bring a play about gender roles written in 1947 to life? You let your students create memes and TikToks to illustrate the book's themes. And then you struggle with grading the assignment because you have no idea what some of them even mean. The students understand all of it, though, and laugh through the class as we present them.

     How do you give students a break when they haven't had one all year? You make hot chocolate, project a You tube fire in a fireplace on your board, and allow them to read independently as you proclaim it an "in-class" snow day. That day every student was reading, every student had a book, every student had a smile on his or her face when they left your room.
     

     How do you motivate students to write a rhetorical analysis? You allow them to film their own public service announcements first so that they have an interesting subject to analyze. You marvel at how creative and profound your students are in creating PSAs about bullying and screen time and mental health.
           

     So when it came time for my theory of knowledge students to write their prescribed titles--an IB assessment that is far more abstract and obtuse than it is practical and useful, I struggled finding a way to motivate you, my students. It wasn't because I was tired or unmotivated myself. I struggled because it was something you had to do, not something I was passionate about teaching you to do. You made "murder boards" where you planned your essays which proved to be successful. Yet when it came time to write the 1600-word paper, many of you were unmotivated. And when the due date arrived, I was missing many of your essays. Discouraged, I decided my classes needed a talk about motivation, and so in a very "Kelly Pace" fashion, I dug up some old photographs from my childhood of moments where someone motivated me and told my students the stories behind those photos. As I gave my "lecture," I could feel it happen--something I vowed I would never do in front of my students unless I'm watching them march in to "Pomp and Circumstance" on their graduation day. I cried. Tears welled up in my eyes until I couldn't hold them in any longer. The floodgates opened, as I told you I was at a loss of how to motivate you. Somehow when it came to senioritis, I had no answers, and I had never before experienced this; I knew the solution wasn't as simple as "raising the roof for metaphors." Teaching became hard--motivation even harder.

      I've come to learn this month that motivation unfortunately can be temporary. The students who I've watched motivated sometimes lose sight of that drive. Sometimes we need more motivation and sometimes it's so very difficult to hold onto. We allow it to slip from our fingers or from the hole in our pockets. We've gotten into college and have been doing this for 12 years straight. We're tired. We really hate this book we're being asked to read. We are never going to use this information again. The diploma is just a piece of paper. In the whole grand scheme of things, this essay just doesn't matter now nor will it ten years from now. We haven't had a snow day all winter. The list goes on and on, and quite frankly, all of those may be accurate statements. So when you experience these moments, let me help you work through them.

    Sadly, I don't have a solution to curing senioritis or your lack of motivation. But what I do know is that when I finally received all of the final drafts of those essays, I marveled at your intelligence. I once again was rejuvenated by your ideas and interpretations. You thought of examples to explain your topic in ways I never could. You went beyond what was expected to produce arguments that honestly are some of the best I've read in all of the years I've been teaching this course. I'd like to think my "waterworks" (as one student called them) were what did that, but I didn't do anything. Motivation was there with you all along. You just needed to reach down and find it.

     Poet and author Gwendolyn Brooks wrote, "We are each other's business; we are each other's harvest; we are each other's magnitude and bond." My students, know that your success is my business just like my success in motivating and teaching you is your business. Know how much you motivate me to do the job I've longed to do since I was seven years old. And know how I will never give up; I will work hard and continue to find ways to motivate and raise the roof for you.