Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program
Third Edition
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INTRODUCTION
Most classrooms (and schools) tend to be far too serious, silent and stolid. All too often the most powerful motivator used tends to be a student's fear of failure, rejection and punishment. While it is true that a quiet, industrious atmosphere is of value for short periods once or twice a day, all too often there is little or no time for happy laughter, animated conversation, practical "hands-on" activities, etc., especially in skill subjects. In short, in many schools, our positive human nature is mostly denied. Let me hasten to say that there are gifted teachers who are exceptions to this serious silent scenario, and most teachers can have their moments of inspired positive enthusiasm, but these circumstances are not the general rule. When I walk into a regular classroom in most schools today, it is much the same as in 1900 with chalkboard, desks or tables in rows, teacher talking up front, quiet students who listen or focus on silent work, and any changes (such as television) are mostly superficial. Almost all "normal" children and teenagers I talk with about this situation, say the only thing they like about school is the socializing and perhaps, their favorite sport. Need I mention sports are a competitive physical activity, one in which even the fans can get excited.
What is motivation?
Motivation is a complex set of inner positive and negative feelings, attitudes and beliefs that are part and parcel of everyone's personal self-concept or image. Unfortunately, these feelings, attitudes and beliefs are usually mostly negative in humans because we mostly believe people, including our children, will only want to do whatever we ask them, by our bringing negative pressure to bear on them, however mild or harsh that pressure may be. This is a false belief.
Inside the mind of every newborn child is a vacant motivation space just waiting to be filled, during childhood, with all kinds of motivators learned from his/her parents, teachers, culture, and wider community. However, because of our traditional association of motivation with many kinds of controlling pressure, the inner motivation space in children is routinely filled with negative motivators linked with anxiety, anger, deprivation, threats, punishment and even physical abuse. Even our so-called "positive" motivators usually bring pressure to bear--motivators, such as, "If you want to be a success in life, you must study hard and do well in school." And these fill our children's inner motivational space with internalized ambitions and goals that lead to depression, neurotic conflict, and sometimes, in the face of failure, to illness or even suicide. These acquired inner motivators are fully internalized in our minds by 16 years of age, after which we live in a state of continuing anxiety and conflict, often accompanied by continual striving, depression or mild rebellion. Not infrequently these negative emotional states cause illnesses.
It is sad to think that, for most students, academic situations in schools and colleges are associated with pain, anxiety and a constant fear of failure. Where did all the early curiosity, the sense of "I can do it successfully," the enthusiastic eagerness, and the joy of discovery, go?
Another problem in schools is that the "motivational" content of the curriculum (if any) is decided by educators, teachers, principals and supervisors without reference to what motivates students, or what their students are interested in. Mostly school motivation is based on fear of failure and its consequences. All examinations and tests automatically instill a fear of failure, not to mention adult admonitions about the dire consequences of failure.
Most curriculum writers, supervisors, principals, educators and teachers regard student motivation as a nebulous human quality which drives people along as a result of the application of "carrots and/or sticks" by an outside agency, like the boss or police. It does not occur to them that motivation is something to be learned by students as an inner trigger. It does not occur to them that patterns of motivation are absorbed by students from the classroom teacher and school atmosphere throughout their school careers--as well, of course, from their homes. Usually the parents say it is the schools job to motivate students, whereas the teachers affirm it is the parents' job.
Research shows that well over 80 percent of success in school is due to student motivation, and much less to intelligence and other factors. Student anxiety connected with relentless performance pressure on students in schools is significantly correlated with reading failure. Of course verbal talent also has to be taken into account here, in the sense that we are less anxious about what we can do well even when pressured to do it. Other researches show that there is little correlation between a person's actual success in adult life and their school achievement levels. Given the same length of school and/or college attendance, students with B or C achievement grades are just as likely to be successful in subsequent life situations as those who got A grades.
In the light of these findings why is there not an 80 percent emphasis on positively motivating students by every possible method and device, many of which are listed in this Section? Many school systems, principals, teachers and parents consider time, money and energy spent on positively motivating students a waste, and that the money would be much better spent on "no-nonsense" academic programs with students noses pressed hard against the proverbial 3 R's grindstone; then, they affirm, we would really see a burst of improved literacy in our schools even though this policy has failed to produce complete high-level literacy for 150 years! Mind you, excellent academic programs should always be an essential part of the curriculum, but leaving out the key importance of motivation is like trying to ride a bicycle with one wheel missing. Strong academic programs AND strong motivation programs are completely compatible, as is demonstrated in the Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program.
The Plight of Spatially Competent Students
Many teachers, in spite of years of training and many years of teaching have never even heard of spatially competent (usually right hemisphere) students, even though such students make up half of the school population. Everyone knows about verbally competent students and think this is the only form of intelligence, but it could be argued that the ones who do most to build our world are the spatially competent people. Spatially competent students tend to think very logically in terms of actual things-as-images in their minds and of the practical relationships of those things to one another. Spatially competent students, who tend to be male, will become our engineers, surgeons, mechanics, taxi-drivers, pilots, dentists, servicemen and women, farmers, factory workers, architects, builders and scientists. Such people are more interested in things and how they work than they are in words. The spatially competent prefer practical organization to verbal communication, and would rather interact through pictorial imagery than through feelings and emotions. Many spatially competent students, though of good intelligence, are much less competent in the area of verbal abilities. Unfortunately, in terms of both motivational interests and verbal skills, these spatially competent students often find themselves in highly verbal classrooms with highly verbal teachers, who, by and large, expect their students to sit quietly and passively using words most of the day. The writers of textbooks are also usually highly verbal, and so they structure even spatial material in those books (as in science and mathematics, for example) in highly verbal ways. Is it any wonder, then, that these spatially competent students who love to DO things soon become bored and disgruntled or resort to day-dreaming.
Please do not polarize verbal and spatial abilities in students or adults. Almost all students with a high spatial ability do have verbal competency, except perhaps, at the extreme ends of the distribution curve. (See: STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS for more about these extremes. Also see statistics in the GLOSSARY.) Similarly almost all students with high verbal competency have spatial abilities which allow them to function well in their everyday world--such as learning to drive a car. But this Section on MOTIVATION is concerned with the differing motivational interests and learning styles especially of spatially competent students.
Should students like learning and be positively motivated in happy ways?
The obvious answer to this question is "Yes!" In which case, should we not, as parents and teachers, place as much emphasis on determining why children want to learn as we do on what they learn?
What then excites children? We do not have far to look. Television, movies, amusement parks, sports, board games, outdoor games, comics, entertaining stories, competitions, rewards, food, certificates, equipment (bicycles, skate boards), colors, illustrations, doing interesting things, doll kits, construction toys, model kits, action figure kits, drawing, painting, dressing up, acting, tools, cooking, children's museums, field trips, sewing, beaches, forests, pets and animals, insects, projects, and so on and on. Most of these interests are not limited to younger children, and at the very least they can become topics to discuss occasionally in the classroom. The Bannatyne Program uses many of these topics in many of its Activities. But before these motivators are discussed in terms of their applicability to the classroom, there is a need to discuss the characteristics of the efficient, student-motivating teacher.
The Bannatyne Reading Program is a superb, proven reading program. The Bannatyne Reading Program is unlike any other reading programs currently available. This means you will find many features which are only in the Bannatyne Reading Program. Numerous kinds of motivation are seamlessly built into the Bannatyne Reading Program. In some Commonwealth countries the program may be referred to as: Bannatyne Programme, or Bannatyne Reading Programme.
Bannatyne Reading, Writing, Spelling and Language Program -- Copyright © 2003 Alexander Bannatyne, PhD
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