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Motivation through Inspiration

Podcasts

Here we are again, talking about Motivation. We love how the Montessori classroom instills an internal motivation in children, and we’ve recorded 2 podcasts on this topic to accompany this post, and the last one we published on this topic.

Motivation is how we get things done.

We have an open work cycle in the Montessori classroom. From when the child comes in, until we’re preparing for lunch, or in the afternoon until they’re picked up, the time is theirs.

“Motivation is how we get things done.”

You might come in and work on the most recent work you were presented, breeze through it and move on to the next challenge. You might ease into your day with a bit of observation and a glass of water, and then be ready for a difficult task. You might gradually build up to the latest insurmountable task, and spend the rest of the morning working toward mastery.

The point is, the time is your own. Children are able to choose any work that’s been shown to them, and are working independently. They’re trusted to choose a level of challenge that is appropriate to the day.

montessori motivation through inspiration

No one is making you work; You are Making You Work. You are doing the learning, the deciphering, the educating, the mastering.

It’s an inspiring place, the Montessori classroom. To be surrounded by colleagues who are each engaged in work they are excited about, for various reasons, making different achievements, making mistakes and realizing limits and asking for help and pushing past limits and creating new amazing conquests, this is inspiring!

“No one is making you work; You are Making You Work.”

We love positive peer pressure. We love the motivation that comes from children watching children. Motivation comes from wanting to learn the big beautiful work at the bottom of the shelf, but first I have to master all these incremental steps. Motivation comes from wanting to do what my friend does and is so good at, so I’m going to work hard and learn to be good at it, too. Motivation comes from wanting, from desire, from inspiration.

You are going to choose this work. You are going to choose to master something. You are going to choose to spend more time than is comfortable, or do “just one more,” or find the joy in the challenge. You are Making You Work; no one can take away the learning the work instills, or the confidence and joy the learning inspires, or the path forward the learning opens.

When we give children choice, they develop motivation.

Written by:

Charlotte Snyder

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