5 Troublesome Fictional School Children and How You Could Motivate Them
With school being such a huge part of children’s lives, it’s no surprise that such a large proportion of children’s TV programmes and books are set in and around the classroom.
However they also contain a lot of characters who will be familiar to children and teachers alike. No one has been to Hogwarts, and yet everyone knows a Draco Malfoy. The yellow, four-fingered world of the Simpsons is entirely fictional and yet Bart is a familiar face.
The problems of motivation and behaviour are often key plot points in these stories, but these ordinary problems are hidden amongst the extraordinary lives of the school children. Chemistry becomes potions and accidental breakages become a situation where the whole school has blown up.
The problem of motivation
Intelligence isn’t the only deciding factor as to whether a child does well at school or not. Other important factors are things like self-esteem and personality. If a child doesn’t feel good about themselves for whatever reason, it is unlikely they will do well and they are far more likely to be disruptive in the classroom.
What many children lack is motivation, so one of the most important roles of a teacher is to motivate their students, so that they want to learn. There are various ways in which you can do this and it depends on the specific needs on the student.
Here are 5 examples of fictional children who can be found on your TV screen or amongst your bookshelves, who lack motivation and advice on how they can be successfully motivated.
Mildred Hubble from The Worst Witch
Long before a certain bespectacled boy wizard entered the global consciousness, another pupil at another school of magic was capturing the imagination of children: Mildred Hubble, the titular worst witch at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches.
Mildred is well-meaning but disorganised and clumsy but her teacher, Miss Hardbroom, interprets this as Mildred just not trying hard enough.
Perhaps Miss Hardbroom should have offered Mildred a little extra support, offering praise and encouragement so that Mildred could see her strengths and enhance them while working on those weaknesses.
Mildred gets into trouble as a result of bullying. After being teased about her cat being different to the other cats, she turns the bully into a pig. If an otherwise good child does something wrong, then it is important to talk about why they did it and how they feel about it, as it might be the result of bullying.
Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter
Hogwarts is probably the most famous fictional school of all time and a place where children for generations to come will dream of attending. However, the school isn’t without its problem students and if anything, all the same problems exist at Hogwarts as they do in ordinary schools – they are just notched up a gear and given a magical twist!
Draco Malfoy is a fairly stereotypical literary villain: an arrogant and attention seeking bully. In just one of many instances of picking on weaker kids, he steals Neville Longbottom’s Remembrall and flies off with it.
Each classroom tends to have a Malfoy and they can be the hardest to deal with. It is important to make a note of them and keep an eye out as much as possible. Spotting and acknowledging any name-calling, however trivial, it is good to deal with straight away, so that the child knows that this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated from day one.
Matilda Wormwood from Matilda
Matilda is famous for her telekinetic powers and her mischievous pranks at Crunchem Hall Primary school.
Throughout the book her anger and frustration comes out in the form of pranks, like when she tipped a glass of water containing a salamander over the head of the most hated and feared teacher, Miss Trunchbull.
Matilda acts out because of an unhappy home life, where her parents don’t love, appreciate or encourage her talents. It is important to identify children with low self-esteem and typically you can do this by spotting those who ‘act out’ and those who ‘act in’. These are just the different ways in which an extravert or an introvert would deal with feelings of inadequacy.
With praise and encouragement self-esteem can be built back up again. A good way of doing this is to emphasise that everyone makes mistakes and this is ok. Often children with low self-esteem will give up out of frustration if they can’t do something, or get something wrong.
Tracy Beaker from The Stories of Tracy Beaker
Tracy is a lonely and frustrated child who lives in a children’s’ care home affectionately referred to by the kids as ‘the dumping ground.’ Even though most children never find themselves in this situation, to some extent all of them can identify with feelings of loneliness and rejection on a smaller scale, which is probably why the story is so successful.
Her anger and frustration comes out in aggressive behaviour as well as simply telling tales. Dissatisfied with her own life, she often says that her mum is a Hollywood actress who is coming to collect her one day.
In anger with another girl at the care home, she breaks her Mickey Mouse clock. It is this kind unpredictable, aggressive behaviour that can be difficult to deal with. A lot positive encouragement and praise is needed to maintain motivation.
Often, offering rewards for completion of work and good behaviour can be a great way of incentivising children with anger problems because they get noticed for their good behaviour instead of getting attention for their bad behaviour all the time. . In the moment, when the child sees that they have done right and earned themselves a reward, they get to acknowledge in themselves their good qualities instead of focussing on their bad behaviours all the time.
Hopefully this should give some ideas on how you could motivate your classroom, as well as remind you of some classic children’s characters. Your classroom might not be as fun as those in the books, but there are a still lot of things that you can do to improve motivation. Here are some useful links on how to motivate children in the classroom.
Do you have any useful tips for keeping children motivated?