Principal's Page

Inspiration and motivation

It was my total pleasure to be invited to hear visiting author Phil Cummings speak on Monday. He was presenting to our Primary students across the morning and he certainly had them engaged.

I found his enthusiasm for writing inspiring. I wanted to walk out of the Auditorium and begin my book immediately. The way he brought life to the idea that writing can be an achievable and natural activity was motivating.

This led me to think how inspiration and motivation work in tandem. We know they are so important for learning. Yet, we realise you cannot give them to someone, try as much as we might with our own children and students. Sure, you can apply external pressure or incentives, which teachers routinely do. In doing so, we always intend for the student to find that internal spark themselves. 

If a student is left alone to find this motivation, it can be a real chore or even feel like an impossible task. It takes a rare student who can find it in isolation, whereas most of us need as many people and opportunities involved as possible. Otherwise, like Phil said, it is like “staring at the ceiling, which is no help at all!”

It is when we have a parent, a sibling, a relative, teachers, coaches, friends, peers, neighbours, trusted advisers and anyone else in our children’s lives that can work alongside and with them that our students benefit the most. For each person brings a perspective and helps create a different set of circumstances that might just help transfer the spark of interest from them to us. 

For me, on Monday, it was the Auditorium, with Year 4 and 5 students laughing and listening, as Phil spoke to us, eyes wide and in full flow retelling the experience of his dog fetching a ball, that had me enthralled and seeing, for the first time, how simple and elegant writing could be. Phil explained how recording into his phone the spoken description of his blonde Border Collie fetching a ball became the possibility of a paragraph for a future book he has no idea of when (or if) he will even write. 

The joy he showed was infectious. Our students were the wiser for hearing it. I certainly got more from the morning than I anticipated. It was yet another reminder of why I love learning.

Sam Cheesman

Principal