What does motivate students ?

One week left of lecturing for this term (and for this year actually!), and I’m glad to see the end. Not each lecture was great, but I think in the whole I managed. Although I do feel sort of empty and will need some re-adjusting to a no-lecture schedule, like phd me.

Apart from the daily management, preparation and problem-fixing, I did have a little time to meditate on more general teaching related issues and the one I spent most time on is: why are these students here? What are they looking for? What motivates them?

One of the groups I teach, third-year undergrads, is very mixed: some seem genuinely interested and there because it is what they want, whether they are very good or not. Some others always seem to hesitate between taking things seriously or behave like snotty teenagers at the back of the bus. And a few really puzzle me. I can’t see them showing much interest for anything. They always seem to think they’re being asked far too much.

I have discussed this with a few people over the past few months and people have come up with all sorts of reasonable and less reasonable explanations, like:

-they are looking for a good marriage
-they have to do what their parents did (unlikely in my discipline)
-they have to maintain the established class structure in the society (OK I think the person who mentioned this was actually trying to come up with as many chocking things as possible, but it still deserves to be considered I think)
-they’re delaying their entry in the job market and taking a few more “cool years”
-we are luxury babysitting services for spoiled old kids.

Hum.

I’ve really tried to put such things at the back of my mind, and tried to focus on students showing genuine interest (even if in very formal, school-ey kind of way), but the question is still there and will stay there, I know.

When I was a student I think I thought I was lucky to be given the opportunity to study, and that I was doing it for my own fulfilment and for learning new things I wanted to know… that has made me terribly naïve about students’ motivation, but is it really inconceivable to be like that? Or to be like that nowadays?