Teaching That Motivates

Successful teaching not only opens the mind but also stirs the emotions, fires the imagination, galvanizes the will.
—Howard Hendricks

While milling around at conferences, I occasionally bump into pastors who say to me, “Prof, you once changed the whole course of my life.”

“Fantastic!” I reply. “How did it happen?”

“Years ago in class you made one statement that opened my eyes to a whole new perspective on ministry.”

I never cease to marvel how powerful truth is—even one sentence of truth—and how profoundly teachers can motivate others. Successful teaching not only opens the mind but also stirs the emotions, fires the imagination, galvanizes the will. If I didn’t embrace that, I would despair, for I live not just to teach truth but to change people.

Of course, motivational teaching isn’t necessarily the norm. I’ve heard some Quaalude teaching in my days that left my mind more in a torpor than a tempest. What is the difference between that and stimulating teaching? How can teachers motivate their students?

Help Listeners Identify with You

My wife belongs to a fraternity of journalists that some time ago sponsored a talk by playwright Arthur Miller. She got two tickets, and I jumped at the chance to go with her. After his presentation, Miller invited questions.

“Mr. Miller,” someone asked, “How can you tell when you have a good play?”

“When I sit in the audience during one of my plays,” he answered, “and in the midst of it I want to shout. ‘That’s me!’ then I know I’ve got a good one.”

Miller has hit on one of the most important principles not only of great plays, but of motivating teaching: our soul is moved by what we can identify with.

People want to see themselves: their dreams, their needs, their problems, and their heartbreaks. Nothing moves listeners more than their reality, their experience, their emotions, their struggles. They don’t want to hear something brand new as much as something relevant to them. They want to feel, This teacher understands me.

There are several things we can do to help people identify with us.

• Tell it like it is. Shun euphemisms, candy coating, fluff, party line. Few identify with baloney and pr. Telling it like it isn’t alienates people. On the other hand, direct, honest speech is powerful.

I have enjoyed good results speaking at men’s conferences, and I think being straightforward is the reason. Men respond to horseradish. They want gutsy, realistic truth.

I’m not advocating shock teaching but forthright teaching. People identify with real-world advice, not Utopian, spin-control sayings. They’re less interested in the way things are supposed to be than in the way they are.

For instance, when I talk about our culture’s growing taste for tainted entertainment, I could describe that in gentle terms: calmly citing statistics to show that violence and perverted sex sell better in the movies than wholesome films, or that Madonna or Roseanne Barr outdraw Bill Cosby or Bob Hope. Instead, I usually prefer something more earthy: “We live in a society that can’t tell the difference between Chanel No. 5 and Sewer Gas No. 9.”

• Major in human interest material. Pastor and author Chuck Swindoll devours the writings of Erma Bombeck, who is a master of the commonplace. She majors in Everyday, where Bob and Linda live 99 percent of their lives. It’s no surprise that people identify with her.

So I try to relate my teaching to the frustration parents feel about their preschoolers, the discouragement business people feel in their careers, the anxiety young couples have about money, the crazy and cute things kids do, the fun of playing softball.

• Share your own struggles. After attending one seminar, a friend said to me, “I wish just once the teacher would have admitted he had sinned or at least had a tough time. Either he plays in a different league, or I don’t know what the Christian life is all about.”

A super pious, ultra spiritual teacher often does more to discourage people than to motivate them. By the end, listeners feel, I guess I just don’t have it. I can’t cut it. I could never be like that.

On the other hand, I find whenever I share a failure or mistake, my students come out of the rocks to tell me how much it meant to them. Suddenly they feel, Hey, there’s hope for me.

I’m not talking about an emotional strip tease, revealing things that are intimate, but teaching as if I don’t have everything down pat. The approach is “Look, I don’t have all of the answers about prayer, but I’m sure involved in the process. Let me share what God is teaching me about this.” When we do, as Arthur Miller put it, people will think. That’s me! He’s describing me!

We can still share successes. Otherwise we’re just the blind leading the blind. Talking about our successes brings credibility. Still, the tone is: “I am someone in process rather than the finished product; yes, I have some successes, but I haven’t always been this way.”

• Build rapport. The more I am involved with my students, the greater my long-term impact on them. Sure, there are a few initiators who simply take what I say and run with it. But most of my students need personal contact and rapport with the teacher.

Establishing rapport isn’t difficult or mysterious; it’s a matter of getting to know students and letting them know me. Even if the teacher is vastly different in personality and interests, listeners will identify with the teacher if he or she acts like a friend.

So I don’t cloister myself in the office; I make it a point to get out on the campus. That’s why they named the benches around here “Prof’s benches;” that’s where I often talk to students. I also go to the student center and lunch with them.

And I start the conversation anywhere, usually with a variation of “What’s going on in your life?” Before long the student will be asking questions, and sometimes I end up doing more teaching there than in the classroom. But the main result is this: because of the rapport we’ve built, that student identifies with me and is more likely to be motivated in the classroom.

• Use humor. One time a bell interrupted a choice discussion in class. I looked at the clock and grimaced, “Sometimes I wish I could shoot that thing off the wall!” About a week later at the end of another class session I warned, “We’re going to get caught by that clock again!” A student stood up and fired a rubber arrow at the face of the clock while the class roared in laughter. I played it to the hilt.

Humor helps people identify with a teacher for many reasons. People bond when they agree about what’s funny. Humor also gently and indirectly shows people’s foibles. And humor puts everyone on common ground.

Since daily life is filled with humorous circumstances, people have trouble identifying with someone who is unfailingly serious. Humor shows that you’re real. So even though my topic may be serious, I make it a point to sugar it with humor.

Express Confidence in Learners

Chuck Swindoll, who studied under me at Dallas Seminary, once said to me, “The thing I appreciated most about you was you believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.” He says I wrote on one of his papers, “Chuck, if you continue to write like this, some day you may become a great writer.” Chuck was always a disciplined guy, with loads of enthusiasm, but for whatever reason, partly his upbringing, partly his own self-image, he just didn’t believe he could do it. It didn’t take any genius on my part to see the flashes of greatness in him. But it did take my willingness to express confidence in someone who at that point only had potential.

Affirmation has a tremendous power to motivate people to learn and even achieve great things. And I’ve found when I follow seven guidelines, my affirmation has its greatest impact.

1. Base it on fact. When affirming learners, we can’t blow smoke. That backfires every time. If we toss out kudos indiscriminately, eventually we lose credibility. Furthermore, mention specific things that indicate progress or potential: not “I like your work” but “Your writing is punchy and clear.”

2. Begin with the positives. Teachers and preachers often get in a critiquing rut; we’re often bothered by the negatives and unimpressed with the positives.

Negatives need to be mentioned, of course, but in due time. For example, more than the twenty-seven things wrong with his sermon, a learning preacher first needs to know the two things he did right. He’s got to start somewhere.

After I’ve convinced him, “Man, you’ve got these two things going for you,” thus motivating him to continue, then I can say, “Would you like to know something that will help make you better?” I’ve never met anyone who refused.

3. Repeat the affirmation. I met Tom Landry when he was coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Having observed that he had more walk-ons who became all-pros than any other coach, I asked how he did it.

“First, you’ve got to see potential,” he said. “But I don’t stop there; I start there. Then I keep telling them that they’re going to have to bust their tail to get that potential into action.”

I’ve never forgotten what he said next: “I discovered that I’ve got to repeat to a player over and over again what his strength is. He may hear me but not to the extent that he needs to hear me. I keep telling him, ‘You can, you can, you can.’ “

You can’t break a student’s habit of negative thinking overnight or with one compliment. For years they have been thinking hundreds and thousands of negative thoughts. They are deeply ingrained—and reinforced by their failures, which will happen to anyone. In addition, even as we affirm learners, new failures keep on coming and weaknesses will endure. Only ongoing, repeated affirmation can counteract that.

4. Encourage learners to set their own goals. Once students have their momentum going, I try to motivate them to outdo me. I can’t do everything well, but I can motivate others to realize their gifts and potential in Christ, kicking them out of the nest and urging them not only to fly, but to soar.

One day after class a student asked if I could give him something more challenging. I assured him I could and called a friend at the Juvenile Detention Home: “I have a student who needs an education.”

“I get the picture,” he assured me.

At the center they put the young man into a cell with an offender convicted of numerous counts of delinquency.

“Hey, what’s your line,” the delinquent sneered. “Every day they send somebody in here with a different line. What’s yours?”

Afterward my student returned to the seminary and said to me, “That was tough. I need all the help I can get in that type of situation. Can you recommend any materials?” So we sat down and worked out a personal reading program to stretch him toward his higher goals.

5. Affirm publicly. I attended First Baptist in Dallas one day when Pastor Criswell called a woman from the congregation to the pulpit. “I’d like you people to know,” he said, “that Mary has been teaching in our junior department for seven years. And I just got a report that in the last month three girls have come to know Jesus Christ in her class.” The whole congregation broke into applause.

This not only gave the teacher a boost, I could just see people thinking. Where do I sign up?

6. Get excited about their discoveries. We express confidence in learners by treating them with respect. For the teacher, that means taking seriously the ideas and discoveries of students. If we speak enthusiastically about what we know but indifferently about the student’s insight, we make them feel like dummies. We undermine their confidence in what they can understand about the Bible, sucking the wind out of their sails.

Instead, I treat students as though they are incredibly smart. I work up a heavier lather over what the learners are discovering than over what I have discovered. I write all over their papers, hold them up, and tell others, “You’ve got to read this!”

Although I may have learned the same thing thirty years ago, I get as excited as if I myself were making the same discovery. And I’m not putting on a show. I sincerely thrill over seeing learners learn.

7. Highlight potential. Not only competence but potential competence motivates. If I know there are skills in me that lay like an undrilled oilfield, I will be stirred to start some wells and get pumping. Recognized potential enables learners to say, “Yes, I’m stumbling around now, but someday I will be a good parent,” or “Someday I will win others to Christ,” or “Someday I will be able to counsel others.”

During my student years at Wheaton College, my most motivating teacher was Merrill Tenney. I know why he kindled such fire: he believed in me and communicated that confidence. One time he put his arm around me and said, “Howie, I believe God has a great future for you, and I want you to know I’m 100 percent on your team.” Here I was, a kid still wet behind the ears; here he was, a great New Testament scholar—and he believed in me. He saw potential. That drove me on to higher things. I wanted to fulfill what he saw in me.

Equip People with Skills

We conducted studies at Dallas Seminary and elsewhere, and found that the number one problem among students is a lack of confidence. They are hindered, paralyzed, and discouraged by insecurity. Yet these are high caliber people, serious students with a B minus average and above, graduates of quality schools.

I think they are a product of our culture. Confidence comes not from easy living but from overcoming adversity. Most of our students have known the good life; they haven’t endured a major economic depression or overcome a significant personal adversity. Few have faced anything that tested them to the core of their being, that stretched them to the maximum, to the point where they had to rely totally on God.

Motivation comes from the confidence that “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Paul said those words in Philippians after describing in the preceding verses all the adverse circumstances he had overcome with God’s help. Paul had proven to himself that God could work through him.

That’s why wilderness camping experiences such as Outward Bound have helped so many youth in this generation. After jumping off a two-hundred-foot cliff and rappelling to the bottom, they hit the ground a new person. It’s a way of giving them what life hasn’t: great challenges and new skills packaged in a short span of time.

Thus, motivational teaching will always be concerned not only with ought-to’s but also how-to’s. Ought-to’s without how-to’s actually demoralize people by making them feel increasingly like failures. It’s like showing movies of a world championship football team to novice football players and saying, “You should do that,” without coaching the skills needed to pull it off. The distance between where they are and where they should be is too wide, with no identifiable pathway to the top. Skills and competency encourage by showing the path.

For example, the average man avoids reading and studying the Bible primarily because he doesn’t know how. He would like to know firsthand what God says, but he presumes the Bible is for the professionals, the pastors, the capable. He’s just a carpenter, a salesman, a truck driver, a businessman. So he learns to occupy himself around the church in ways he won’t make a fool out of himself—ushering, cutting the lawn.

Years ago I taught the members of the Dallas Cowboy football team to study the Bible. I remember Roger Staubach, the all-pro quarterback, objecting, “Hey, I think you’ve got the wrong group. We’ve got too many linemen in here.” He was wrong; they ate it up. Dan Reeves, an assistant coach, came up after one session and said, “Doc, I learned more in one hour in this class than I’ve learned all my life. How come?”

Because I had simply equipped him with skills so he could study the Bible for himself.

Speak to Needs

What spurs a teacher to teach and what motivates a student to learn are usually two very different things. Teachers often find inspiration in a body of knowledge or experiences, significant truths that they want others to know about. Learners, on the other hand, are generally motivated by their felt needs; that’s usually the grid through which they see the world. As a result, teachers are often answering questions that learners aren’t asking.

However, teachers never lack motivated learners when they speak to needs. The greater people’s pain, the greater their motivation to learn. With their marriage crumbling, a couple will be compelled to hear a sermon series on family peace, but they would likely give only half a mind to a series on “Reconciling God’s Sovereignty and Human Freedom.”

But felt needs—for a new job, for a less hectic life, for a harmonious family—are frequently only symptoms of ultimate needs—for meaning, for security, for companionship. The Bible specializes in ultimate needs. The motivating teacher surfaces those ultimate needs and ties them to felt needs.

For example, a man paralyzed by fear may crave assurances that he will not lose his job, but his real need is to trust God to never forsake him. If I make it clear that by knowing God better he will overcome fear and anxiety, he will have a much higher level of trust, even if the job does indeed evaporate.

Many teachers are good speakers but poor listeners. I encourage pastors to take churchgoers out for breakfast, ask questions, and keep quiet: “What’s going on in your life? What are you losing sleep over? What are you disagreeing with your wife about? Where do you feel inadequate? What are you struggling with?”

Laypersons often feel pastors descend from heaven on Sunday morning and ascend on Sunday night, that they don’t live on this planet. When you preach on subjects based on conversations, people will think you’ve been reading their mail. One man whose pastor had done this said to me, “My pastor has had a brush with reality.”

Even something as abstract as doctrinal teaching can be approached from needs. Few in our day could care less about theology, but whether they know it or not, they do care passionately about it. When a man’s wife has just died, he is vitally interested in the subject of the sovereignty of God. He just might not be able to phrase his need that way.

Therefore, I’ve found it best to teach theology by a case-study approach, relating life situations to specific doctrines. For me theology is not the study of a seamless, systematic body of knowledge but of answers to life’s most troubling questions.

And when I can convince people that in the Bible they will discover truths that will change their life for the good, make them better people, answer their questions, and guide their decisions, they will be inflamed to learn it.

In the end, motivating teachers are good listeners. John Stott said that teachers need to be not only students of what they have to teach but of what their listeners need to learn.

But there is one more element. As John Stott once said to me, “I’ve discovered it’s not hard to be biblical if you don’t care about being contemporary. And it’s certainly not hard to be contemporary if you don’t care about being biblical. Being biblical and contemporary—that’s the art of Christian communication.”

And that’s also the key to motivating people to learn.