Post #2

Argh, I thought that I already posted this.  I guess not.  These couple of weeks have been rather stressful.  Anyways....

What is motivation?

I believe that motivation is a desire for accomplishment; a drive to get things done.  It is a force that compels you to do something, whether it be to gain some materialistic thing, the newest gadget, a car, a better job, or something intangible, such as your education, quitting smoking, or dieting.

Now what mnotivates me?  I don't know really, it is many factors thast determine how motivated I am at the time for something.  I remember what motivated me to become an educator.  Previously I had been going to college to get a degree in Chemistry, and I was doing quite well.  But then I got activated and deployed to Kosovo.  While I was over there, we renovated a school, and I rememberhow deplorable the conditions were.  The schoolhouse was so dilapidated that you were reluctant to believe that it was in use at all.  The roof had big holes in it that let in the rain and snow, and critters as well.  The chalkboards were barely recognizable, since they were so worn and scratched that only a couple areas were usable.  The students' desks were barely functional at all, and many were simply chairs around a large cardboard box with a piece of plywood on top of it.  The walls were thin cement with no insulation at all.  But on the plus side, each classroom had its own woodburning stove fro heat during the winter months.  But of course they would fill the room with smoke very often during instruction, but they did not leave when it happened.  They only went outside when it caught the painted walls on fire, which, sadly, was quite often as well.  Basically, the conditions were absolutely horrible.

Nonetheless, the kids were in school.  they were there because they wnated to be.  Kosovo was, for all intents and purposes, a third-world country, although technically not a country at the time.  The children knew that an decent education was their only ticket to success there.  They would walk to school through the snow, the rain, the freezing temperatures despite the fact that it was not a safe environment with all the illegal activity there(the opium and human traffiking trade).  They WANTED to go to school as bad as things were for them.  Then in the afternoon, they would go home to work the fields or at their parents' stores.

It took me some time to realize just why they did it.  To create a beter life for themselves and their country.  Their education was their "get out of jail free card".  Their education was the one of the most important things in their lives.  Now what I didn't understand is why we(in the USA) took this gift completely for granted.  That is when I decided that I would go into teaching, to make a positive difference in the lives of our children, in our future, even if they did not realize it or want it.