Tzvi Fishman in conjunction with Hakol Hayehudi put out this video explaining how Open Fire regulations really work in Israel.

It’s back to school season – with new hopes, new visions, new plans for the future. Everyone starts the new year with a sense of anticipation. This time I’ll try harder. I’ll do better. I’ll pay attention. I’ll give it my best shot. And many times people do achieve a greater degree of success.

But often those new hopes are dashed just as soon as the new notebook gets scratched, the pencils gets chewed up, and the backpacks show wear and tear. Children, like all of us, are creatures of habit. They fall into the same patterns year after year. And all too often those hopes and dreams for a better and brighter future fall to the wayside.

What’s missing here? In a word, “motivation.”

What is motivation? It’s the ability to improve our efforts and rouse ourselves into action. It’s the magic ingredient that adds a measure of oomph to the day. It’s an essential factor in learning.

As soon as we wake up, we are (hopefully) motivated to join the world. Some of us are motivated by the salary we get at the end of the week. Others by the screaming baby who wants her bottle now. And still others by the fact that a chavrusa is waiting.

Sometimes motivation comes from external factors, such as these. We need to accomplish certain things because others expect it of us, because we have a responsibility to be there, or because we will be rewarded in some way. Other times, motivation is internal. We may be motivated by a passion to work to our fullest potential. We may be motivated because we believe in ourselves, or because we wish to attain a personal goal.

What’s the secret to motivating students? It’s probably one of the most perplexing issues facing educators and parents alike. And whose job is it anyway? The answer to this question is clear. It’s the responsibility of every adult who comes in regular contact with kids.

Fires in the Mind

Kathleen Cushman, a journalist and documentarian, researches motivation in students. In her more recent books, Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us about Motivation and Mastery and The Motivation Equation: How Youth Learn, Cushman shares decades worth of research as to how motivation works and how parents and teachers can help increase it.

She interviewed thousands of teens asking the question: “What does it take to get really good at something?”

And, in her book she writes, “A simple question, it reverberates at many levels. It matters equally to youth and adults, rich and poor, professional, artist, and tradesperson. Its answers have the potential to transform our schools and communities. And exciting research on the question of developing expertise has emerged in recent decades from the field of cognitive psychology.

Powerful new evidence shows that opportunity and practice have far more impact on high performance than does innate talent.”

She explains that success comes from the following: “We believe in what we are doing. We value it and doing it really matters to us. We believe that, providing we work hard, we can do it. We expect that we can succeed.” And, when we are motivated to do something (even if it is a non-academic pursuit), we are more likely to succeed in all other areas (academic included).

The actual equation, according to Cushman, looks like this: Value x Expectation of Success = Motivation

How to Motivate

Below, I’ve compiled a list of different ways parents or teachers can help children find their own motivation.

            Help them “catch a spark” from family talents. Find out what family influences exist. Maybe someone is really talented at sewing or basketball at home; maybe someone else watches his mother writes short verses of poetry on napkins. If those activities already have value, then the child has half of the motivation equation.

            Help them “catch a spark” just for fun. Sometimes you can help a child place value on something he or she has never done before. Cushman shared a story of a student who had the freedom at a school retreat to do anything from among the several activities they offered. The student chose to canoe, something she had never done before. And, when she realized how much fun she had doing something completely new, she was more open to trying other new things like math problems.

            Be a guide. As a teacher or a parent, when kids get stuck (and start to doubt their ability to succeed), we can step in and coach them through that difficult zone. Then, we can step back once they have regained their confidence. Help them connect their efforts to the success that they have achieved in the past. Cushman writes, “As they savor each moment of success, we can help them connect it to those moments that came before – and those that will follow.”

            Provide time to try and try again. Resilience, grit, whatever you want to call it, this is an important piece of the motivation puzzle. And, by giving children the opportunity to keep coming back to the same problems and to master them, they gain a sense of confidence and success. And, for teachers looking to help students do “deliberate practice” rather than rote repetition, Cushman suggest that the practice should include the “four R’s”: readying themselves for new learning, repetition and application of knowledge and skills, reviewing material learned earlier, and revising their work.

Register now for a Social Thinking workshop by Michelle Garcia Winner on November 16. Call Mrs. Schonfeld at 718-382-5437 for more information.

The IAF on Thursday morning attacked three terror infrastructure targets belonging to Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip. The attack came in retaliation for high trajectory fire into the Eshkol Regional Council carried out earlier.

The IDF’s Spokesperson said that the IDF continues to view Hamas as being solely responsible for everything that takes place within the Gaza Strip. The IDF will continue to act harshly in order to maintain the quiet in Israel’s southern communities.

As The Jewish Press Online reported earlier, at least one mortar shell exploded in an open area of the Eshkol Regional Council, but local residents were unaware of the attack since the air raid system failed to activate. No one was injured.

Five Israeli firefighting companies spent the afternoon battling a blaze in the pine woods of the Jerusalem Forest on Tuesday, west of Jerusalem in the Judean Mountains.

According to Fire and Rescue authorities, the fire was judged to be of medium intensity and posed no immediate threat to nearby residents despite the windy conditions.

On Sunday, firefighters battled a much larger forest fire in the same area.

In order to extinguish that blaze, fire officials needed 10 firefighting teams on the ground, supported by six firefighting planes in the skies working together for hours against the flames.

Nearly two dozen people were evacuated from the Zippori Center guesthouse, located between Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial museum, due to the thick smoke.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Just before midnight after Shabbat, IDF troops running standard operations alongside the Gaza border near Netiv Ha’asara came under fire from within Gaza.

No one was injured in the attack, but bullet holes were found in the ground next to the troops.

The IDF then fired at a Hamas position, according to the IDF spokesperson.

The IDF did not clarify if it used artillery or tank fire against the Hamas target.

Most everyone here in Israel, and in many parts of the world, are happy that for once the State of Israel has shown some strength in its response to Arab Gazan terror attacks on the south of the country.

Gaza militant rocket hits Israel, Israel responds with air strikes, shells

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip launched a rocket that landed in the Israeli border town of Sderot on Sunday and Israeli aircraft and tanks responded by shelling the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, the army and police said… An Israeli shell during an initial retaliation damaged a Beit Hanoun water tower and there were no casualties, local residents said.
Multiple air strikes later in the evening hit at least 30 different sites in the Gaza Strip belonging to Hamas, the smaller Islamic Jihad and other militant groups and two people were lightly hurt, Gaza health officials said.
A music festival in Sderot attended by hundreds of Israelis was temporarily disrupted as people sought shelter, television footage showed.

Have you noticed that even Reuters has properly sequenced its headline? Could this be a sign the Moshiach (Messiah) is getting closer?
Is our new Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman really changing the rather useless gentle fly swatting responses to the dangerous missile attacks by Gazan Arab terrorists to proper and suitable bombing? Or is this a one time event? Only time will tell. Most Israelis have gotten fed up with the namby-pamby Israeli responses and the very Leftist utterings of the previous Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon. The big problem with Lieberman is that he is so totally inconsistent, but he does have the knack to say what the public wants to hear.

I wouldn’t venture a guess as to how long this new policy will last, but in the meantime, I support it!

Firefighters from the in northern Israel battled a blaze in the Bara’am Forest on Monday evening.

At least four firefighting planes and five firefighting units were involved in fighting the flames.

No injuries were reported in the fire.