Put Student Motivation First: Generating Discourse That Motivates Students

Naturally, having a professional background in engineering and business, and being the son of a mother who taught school for 30 years, I had dreams of implementing an entrepreneurship curriculum into public schools. However, it wasn't long after trying my hand at teaching, first as a substitute and then a math teacher, that I realized the broad culture of public education wasn't conducive to this integration--the students were too far removed to appreciate the creative freedoms of such an opportunity. With this disheartening reality, I began to see that the bulk of the battle for student aptitude didn't happen inside the four walls of a school building.

While teachers, principals, and counselors work tirelessly to retain students, it is the culture of the community outside those four walls that determine what most of those students will become. In my first attempt to mitigate the counter effects of low-income urban and rural culture, this book serves as a guideline to teachers for motivating students to work hard beyond classroom engagement. I draw from my diverse background as an engineer, entrepreneur, educator, and little league coach, to create a series of questions and synopses meant to provoke the analytical and creative minds of students and teachers, and generate discourse that brings about a greater sense of personal motivation.