What is in it for the student, from the student's own perspective?
It is important for students to understand teachers are helping them to figure out what they want to do in life, and are helping them achieve those goals. It is not enough for teachers to give students examples of what students do not want to do in life. Teachers want to inspire students to learn; to give them an appreciation for knowledge; to show them how to put value into knowledge, and how to extract value from it. For working adults is easier to see how, in this technological world of ours, meaningful numerical patterns come from everyday life. Numerical patterns coming at us directly from real life make us think about reality in terms of numbers. The more comfortable we are with numbers, and with handling them, the better we can express the ideas suggested to us by those numerical patterns. Sooner or later, in one form or another, we realize the math we currently know is somehow inadequate to analyze the data we want to understand. Even for students who have always been good at math, there may come a point where their homework problems baffle them. This may be because such students tend to enroll in AP classes at an early age. By the time they are high school seniors, they are already covering material some science majors only get to learn about in their college sophomore year. Therefore, it is important for students to create good study habits since early in life. Study is not only preparation for work but study in and of itself can be an awful lot of work. Given that study takes time, energy, and other resources, it is important for students to be able to associate it with experiences of achievement, and empowerment. Success means different things for different people; it even means different things for the same person at different points in their life. Often students question themselves: "Is this effort worthwhile?" Some sort of confirmation is needed about it. The discipline of doing homework with a good degree of concentration, regardless of whether or not we like a particular subject that much, pays off when, thanks to that consistent effort, we are able to see the things that interest us in a new light. For many, it may mean just getting past a particular requirement, thereby clearing their horizon from a bulky obstacle. Clearing out such requirements can give students an improved sense of self-esteem, and a renewed confidence in themselves. Another important factor may be taking our time to learn things thoroughly, to make the subject ours, to make sure we really understand it, because then we know what to do at any given point, instead of feeling like randomly throwing darts in the dark, and hoping to achieve some result by chance. There are many factors involved in learning. Each student builds their own learning strategy, according to what they determine is best for them. Teachers can only hope to influence in some measure such decision making process on the student's part. Students constantly make these decisions on their own, multiple times a day, choosing the way they study, selecting what gives them the best possible outcomes in their own world, according to everything they consider important - not necessarily what other people consider important for them. For some students it is more important to find ways of having fun while learning. Others predominantly focus on their long term goals (passing exams with a good enough score) without almost ever giving themselves the chance to consider their learning experience from any perspective other than their test results. In summary, it is important for students to find educators who can provide them not only with facts but also with motivation enough for grasping those facts, and applying them.
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