03/04/2025
DO STUDENTS NEED MOTIVATION OR INFORMATION?
By VIDAMBU Sam.
Over the last couple of years there has been an upsurge in the number of high school speakers, guiders, counsellors, pastors and motivators in Kenya.
Gomeri, Sam Vidambu, Arita, Opingo, Joe, Wambugu, Wanyonyi, Ochieng, Kioko, Kanja, Burale and Mwakazi. These are some of the most famous high school speakers we have in the country. Most of these speakers are actually friends and they know each other very well.
But, do students need motivation or information?
English language has three very important words: Knowledge, Understanding and Wisdom. Knowledge means information, understanding means comprehension and wisdom means application. The truth is a student who lacks knowledge is uninformed, a student who lacks comprehension is ignorant and a student who lacks application is unwise.
Informed, Uninformed and Misinformed. Do we want our students to make the right decisions or informed decisions? Information makes students to make right informed decisions. These are the students between ages of 14 and 18. Most of them are getting information from rumours of Whatsapp, fake news of Facebook, gossips of Twitter, show offs of Instagram and the trash from Tiktok. They end up getting misinformed.
One Spanish proverb says ‘Sin motivacion no hay sacrificio, sin sacrificio no hay disciplina y sin disciplina no hay exito.’ This literally translates to ‘Without motivation there is no sacrifice, without sacrifice there is no discipline and without discipline there is no success.’
Not knowing what you want is a problem of information. Not chasing what you want is a problem of motivation. Not achieving what you want is a problem of persistence.
Two of the best speakers of all time are Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn. Jim Rohn says that motivation should come before information because you need to inform people who are already motivated. Zig Ziglar says information should come before motivation because you need to motivate people who are already informed.
The truth is many students in high school don’t like motivational speakers. It’s because the students are already motivated, what they want to know is how to improve in Mathematics, how to cope with adolescence, how to balance the subjects, how to pass Chemistry, how to concentrate in school and not focus so much what’s happening at home, how to master content, how to answer exam questions, how to go to campus, etc. They don’t want to hear success stories but want to be told how to become successful, they don’t want to be told to work hard because they are already working, they are not looking for someone to tell them to sleep at 12 and wake at 3 because they already know how to spend their time, they don’t want to be told to never give up because they are not relinquishing soon, they don’t want to be told what they already know but they want information on what they don’t know.
The truth is students need three mentors: Academic mentor, Spiritual mentor and Career mentor. An academic mentor could not do spiritual mentorship. A spiritual mentor could be so poor in career mentorship. It’s wrong to assume that because someone talked to your teachers well he will also talk to your parents well. Speakers have specialisations.
You’ll realise that when students are constantly addressed by their own teachers they rarely take the talk seriously as opposed to when an outsider comes. Another truth is teachers are trained in teaching their specific subjects, but not trained in handling other areas e.g spiritual aspect or social aspect. Speakers handle different topics, they have different programs and they have different charges for their sessions. My suggestion is, get a mentor in various areas and work with them until the boy becomes a man and that girl becomes a lady of substance.
Students need information then motivation, but it should be in form of mentorship.
Get a qualified mentor who will help your students to expect to win, win daily, change habitual patterns and to rewrite their story.
Hayin Malam Development Association HAMDA
