How do you motivate teenagers? When do you just "allow" them to fail?

You make the expectations and the consequences for not meeting them crystal clear. And then you follow through, fairly and consistently.

If they don’t care about low grades, and their parents don’t care about low grades, there is very little you can do.

How about this: when handing out tasks to class, simply ingnore the don’t-work-ever kids.
As they usualy already don’t do them, then there is no (direct) harm, and in time they will (probably) going to ask why the f are you not giving me one?
You can answer that and give the reason, but obviously they know the reason themselves.
Hand the task out to them.
Since they did take step 1 (wtf not give us one) they may feel forced (because the other classmembers saw them making step 1) to take step 2 too (do the tasks)?

I’m aware that this might sound like pedagogic bullcrap.
Not experienced in this field, just gave it a shot.

If there are a lot of kids not being motivated to do the work you may need to reexamine your teaching style. Maybe things should be broken down into smaller assignments.
As an employer, I have learned that people do what you INSPECT not what you EXPECT. If I just hand out assignments without ever checking up on the progress and seeing if anyone needs assistance or fully understands my expectations then I have learned the hard way, much to my embarrassment that the work either gets done haphazardly or not at all.
If they know that I care and are paying attention to their progress, I have a better chance of getting a positive result.
I am sure it is the same in a classroom setting.

(Inspired by @rebbel‘s answer) Instead of handing out assignments, if you hand out assignments, have everyone come up and get it physically. That shows motivation right there. If they don’t get up and get it, they definitely won’t do the assignment. And when they see everyone going up, they may be influenced and therefore go up as well. Also, if they went to go get the assignment, maybe they would be more inclined to do it, i.e. “well i walked up and got it so i might as well do it…”

offer money.

@abnb I have thought about that!!!!

im 17 and I´m a up and down student meaning last year i got Honor role and the year before that i failed and had to repeat….theres almost nothing that the TEACHER can do to motivate….everyone i know (and i know a lot of kids) find it kind of stupid when the teacher trys to give us something to work with..it all has to do with the kid and how we feel about it at the time..

hmmmm jamzzy, any other advice for me?

Just remind them the benefit of working, getting a good education, etc. Although at some point in everyone’s high school career’s it’s time to allow them to fail. I don’t know how old your kids are, but if they’re Juniors/Seniors, it’s time to let them fail. If they’re Freshman/Sophomores, they’re really close to being allowed to fail, so one last attempt is okay.

@kikibirdjones what kind of teacher are you….the strict one that all the kids hate… or the ones that joke around a lot that the kids love….the fact that you Fluther really gives me a feeling that you are the second one.

I teach art so…..I am pretty open and funny, but I have to really lay down the law so the kids don’t run all over me. And I’m young, so that makes it harder.

@kikibirdjones i hear you…i guess being young makes it hard now that i think of it…every young teacher Id have id always treat like another student with the ability of getting me in trouble. I guess you just have to really be serious sometimes…I remember my art teacher last year was a reallll jokester and Id always use to push her buttons and hand in work late because i knew she would never get mad…..until i tagged one of her desks and she kinda just pulled me aside and let me know that it was a huge sign of disrespect. After that i saw her as less of a friend as more of a teacher….being funny and what not can be a plus to get kids to like you but than you have to know when to turn it off for a while meaning not for just a minute to explain something…but for a week or so…to let the kids know whos boss.

wise words, jamzzy! thank you.

@kikibirdjones PS. if you ever have one of those bad ass kids what works more on them is if you verbally humiliate them in front of the class rather than just give them detention or what not…they feed off that and i hate those kids and steal their school IDs.

My daughter is motivated by a complex web of pride in herself, my pride in her, getting closer to her goals, and believing that if she takes care of the things she needs to others are more willing to lend a hand when she needs it. This is partly inborn and partly the result of teaching her these things for the past 17 years of her life.

My son, however, is a different story. In his case, the best thing to do, since he has psychological problems that lead him to want to fail, is to establish a rapport with him and, more importantly, with the behavior improvement staff, and with me, his mother. That way he knows that not doing the work will result in a lot of people being disappointed in him and, more importantly, the loss of computer privileges at home. In addition, I happily reinforce the point that if he does his work (and turns it in) he will get a reward of some sort, ranging from a new video game to going to the movies with me.

Humiliation is never a good idea. It can be a excellent way to drive a kid to drop out of school or simply to get your tires slashed. I recommend rewards instead. Extra time on the computer, extra time to go to the library, exemption from a pop quiz, or whatever you can think of, to go to those who score above a certain point on an assignment.

Get them excited about the work. Get them involved in doing real work. Work they can see is relevant to life, and in particular, their lives.

You’re the teacher. You are responsible for demonstrating a sense of enthusiasm. Reward and punishment, while they work, don’t have a lasting impact. You want your students to love whatever it is you are teaching. Or at least think it’s cool.

Kids want to matter. So many teenagers feel like there is no place for them in society. Society values them little. It throws them into schools when they want to be out making a contribution already. It gives them shit jobs when they think they can do so much more. They have so much energy. A good teacher can just channel that energy into interest towards whatever it is they are supposed to teach.

A good teacher learns more from the students than the students learn from the teacher. How can you learn from students? You have to put them in in a position where what they know from life matters. They need to solve real problems, and it can’t be problems that have a set answer.

Of course, this is the same stuff as you do for adult learners or, for that matter, elementary school kids. Unfortunately, most educational administrative systems don’t leave teachers free to do this. For it to work, you kind of have to let go of all the forms of accountability the school system imposes. Tests and grades don’t really matter. Learning does.

You gotta pull up your sleeves, and pitch in, working with the kids like you are all on the same team. You’re the consultant. They do the work, and when they get in trouble, you help them figure it out. Let me tell you. Teaching is so much easier when they do all the work. You just stand aside and try not to get in their way.

Edit—if you do it right, you can have the students hold each other accountable. That way you don’t have to face the issue of letting them fail or not letting them fail. The class will do that for you. If you want to be really radical, you can let them have input on evaluating each others work. I wouldn’t tell them they are evaluating it officially, but I would have them critique work in a problem-solving kind of way. You’re looking at process as much as result. It’s like the fish thingy. Teach them process, and they can learn forever. Teach them a fact, and all they will know is the fact.

I was a student who never did his homework (well, maybe not “never”. I probably did about 35% of it).
I always got A’s and B’s on tests, always completed my in-class assignments, I was always a student willing to be called on for an answer, never a disciplinary issue (beyond elementary school, at least).

I never felt motivated to do homework. It never seemed important to me. I learned my lessons well enough in class (except for one or two select classes, such as Algebra).
The more important reason why I never did it, though, is because I felt that school time was school time, and home time was home time. I never brought issues from home to school. I was never somebody who played on his Gameboy in class, or texted in class, or even wasted the class’ time by chatting up with a friend. I felt it was wrong to have to do the exact opposite.

So there’s your reasoning for students (At least, THIS student) didn’t do homework.
As for in-class work, it’s probably not something they’re interested in. I see you mention you’re an art teacher. I was a student who was very disinterested in art, but took 2 art classes in 11th grade. As said above, I was a student who always did his work. But for art class, I would rush through it and do a shitty job, so I could just sit and think.

I’m not sure if you’re just a basic “Survey of art” class, or if you’re something specific like ceramics, etc. But you may want to try mixing up the assignments, or the media. If not, you might want to try to re-evaluate the attitude that you let run the class.
I’ve had boring classes where the teacher yammered on for a long time and nobody felt like participating, and I’ve had extremely fun classes in which plenty of people are competing to answer questions. Part of this is just the selection of students you get, but a bigger part of this is how YOU run YOUR class.

It is interesting how times change. When I went to school, it was the teachers job to teach and motivation came from the fact that if you didn’t get good marks you would have hell to pay with parents. I hated school, it was never fun and the teacher (nun) was not my friend, but I learned because that was what you did in school. Usually around 40 kids on the class and one scrawny nun to do it all.

I also never had employees I needed to motivate and I had a lot of teen agers. If they were not motivated then they didn’t keep the job and make the money. I never expected a boss to motivate me, economics did that. When I went into business for myself, again, food on the table was the great motivator.

When did it become the responsibility of everyone except the motivatee to be the motivator?????

Saw an interesting TED talk on motivation. Dan Pink argues that reward/punishment are effective for straight-forward tasks with a clearly defined goal (grading papers) but can actually hinder progress in complex tasks that require creative solutions, analysis, collaboration, etc.(designing curriculum). He suggests that autonomy and a sense of purpose are better motivators for these tasks. His model is for business, but sound like it should translate to education as well. Go to TED.com