Kindling the Flame of Motivation

"No, your left hand's too loud. Play finger 4!" We had piano lessons in a few hours, and I wanted Katie's piano teacher to hear a definite improvement in the way she played her newest piece, a Sonatina by Clementi. "Do it again!"

"I hate this piece!" Katie shouted.

"Why?"

"Because you always get mad at me when I play it."

At that point, I belatedly realized my mistake. In my anxious, not entirely misguided hope to impress piano teacher Margie with the results of our effort, I was squelching Katie's desire to learn. The parent's duty, according to Shinichi Suzuki, is to "create motivation in the child." Both last night and this morning I had barked out orders and created rebellion and frustration rather than a love for music and a desire to succeed.

In his book The Schools our Children Deserve, Alfie Kohn discusses the impossibility of directly motivating another person. He writes, "First, while you can often make someone else do something--in effect buying a behavior with a bribe or threat--you can never make him or her want to do something, which is that 'motivation' means. The best you can do is create the kind of setting and offer the kind of tasks that will tap and nourish people's own motivation" (Kohn 125). I think Suzuki understood this. Many of his statements appear to me somewhat cryptic because I have found wisdom in them as I have learned not too interpret them too literally. Parents may need to create motivation in their child, but this is done through creating the right environment and exerting the "right kind of effort," not through directly ordering our child to want to do something.

All children from birth had a natural motivation to learn. The inner drive to walk and talk persists no matter how many times they mispronounce their first words or stumble and fall as they take their first steps. Deborah Meier said, "a passion for learning . . . isn't something you have to inspire [kids] with; it's something you have to keep from extinguishing" (Kohn 125). If, as Plutarch wrote, "the mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled," this week I have unfortunately been the fire extinguisher rather than the match.

The downside of this is that I've been doing the opposite of what I should be. Luckily for me, there is an upside. It is:

1. I can change.
2. I have not completely killed Katie's desire to play the piano, just subdued part of it.
3. I know what I should be doing.

In my experience, skills that come less naturally to people than speaking and walking require more extensive efforts to kindle the flame of motivation into a blaze. Like playing an instrument, reading is not a developmental skill, one that people naturally learn as a part of growth into adulthood. The parent teacher can help by making the process interesting and rewarding even when it is at its most tedious.
This week, I have been successful at kindling the flame of reading in my 3-year-old son Luke even though I have smothered the flame of piano playing in Katie. He is at the earliest stage of learning to read, when it has little intrinsic reward. Reading lists of words, sounding them out slowly, without the fluency to enjoy a story or get useful information, is a difficult enterprise. I have discovered many ways to shelter and encourage these first sparks of reading.
I stuck with words that had the short "a" sound in our first reading lesson. They also all rhymed with "at." Luke knows his letter names and their sounds thoroughly, a necessary foundation to keep reading from being too challenging. We accompanied each word he read with an activity to add fun and variety. When he read "cat" we pretended to be cats; when he read "bat" he pretended to fly like a bat; when he read "fat" we talked about how Santa Claus is fat and pretended to be Santa; when we read "hat" he pretended to put a hat on his head. This made it into a game. Then I allowed him to reread the same words several times on different days before introducing new ones. Finally, after practicing these words, he read them for grandma, and a couple of days later, for his dad, giving him an opportunity to show off what he could do.
As I continue to help Katie practice the piano, I need to follow these same principles.

1. Make sure she has a solid foundation in the basics of the piece before progressing to more difficult things. In this case, practice just the right hand and left hand a lot before playing the piece with both hands.
2. Take baby steps as we move forward. We can take two notes, three notes or a measure at a time rather than trying to play the entire piece at once.
3. Find a way to add fun, variety or make it a game. We agreed with her piano teacher to see how many times in a row she could play each of the ending cadences correctly on one of her pieces. Each day we will see if we can do more repetitions than the day before.
4. Share our small successes with others. We need to celebrate our progress and share it with brothers and sisters, Dad and Grandma.

At times I have snuffed out my own motivation to work with my children because of the guilt I feel for my many mistakes. At these times, I remind myself of my successes so my failures don't overwhelm me. This week I can celebrate my progress with my niece. As I have taught her literature and writing, I have seen her motivation grow from a birthday candle to a bonfire. This week she asked, "Can you give us two writing assignments this week? I really like it when we get to do more than one."
Katie, please remember that I am human, I make more mistakes than I would like, but I love music and I love you. I hope to kindle your already fiery spirit into a greater enthusiasm for learning, not to douse it.