Watch a toddler throw a tantrum, and you can see what unconstrained behavior looks like.  Fortunately, most of us get better at controlling our actions, or life would be pretty chaotic.  We constrain ourselves for a number of different reasons. If you are waiting at a stop light, for instance, and there is no one around, you don’t drive through the intersection because you might get caught and get a ticket.  That is an external constraint.

But there are other reasons to control your impulses.  If you are taking a shower and you have the urge to sing a show tune at the top of your lungs, you can let it rip freely and without inhibitions, no matter how good (or poor) a singer you may be.  The reason you don’t jump up on a table in a restaurant and do the same thing, however, is because we don’t do things like that in public.  This is a cultural constraint, and it is quite effective in preventing that kind of disruptive behavior.  Cultural constraints are a powerful factor in the classroom, as in life.

In fact, cultural imperatives not only constrain problematic behaviors, but also encourage positive behaviors.  Kids practicing soccer in the local park or amateur actors rehearsing a play in community theater will put in enormous effort towards accomplishing a common goal.  Soldiers in combat will even overcome their survival instincts when their culture demands it of them. Our students, who may be listless and disengaged in academic classrooms, will often come alive in extracurricular activities.  The local culture within the group ignites their intrinsic drive to work incredibly hard and do things they never thought they could accomplish.

These local cultures within the larger culture give their members a sense of belonging and purpose.  People who identify with such a culture will push themselves toward excellence in service of a common goal, like winning a game or putting on a show.  The energy, dedication and enthusiasm that is released in this process can be overwhelming.

Our goal as teachers is to create a classroom culture that motivates our students in the same way.  It is something that rarely happens in academic classes — just walk down any school hallway and look at the expressions on students’ faces as they sit at their desks — but I believe that lack is largely due to a cultural expectation, an unspoken belief that joy of experiencing the intrinsic drive just doesn’t happen in classrooms.

And yet it is possible.  I have seen it in my own classes and in the classes of teachers I have worked with.  When it happens, the results are often beyond imagining.

We need to remove ourselves from the age-old and futile role of trying to provide motivation for our students.  When we try to force them to work, when we nag or harangue or bribe them with points, it simply isn’t very effective, and often makes things worse.  (This is especially true for students who are unsuccessful in school.) We fail because we are trying to motivate our students and steer their behavior from the outside in.  Classroom culture, however, does this same function, with astonishing effectiveness, from the inside out.