Developing Intrinsic Motivation

As Teachers it is imperative that we motivate our students before every lesson. We can think of so many ways to get them hooked into the lesson. There can be games. There can be rewards or prizes for good performance and behavior, or negative motivation such as punishments, such as facing-the-wall and deductions from scores.
However, as the kids age, these motivations are no longer working. They develop their own set of motivating factors. Usually, because of the many distractions — like social media (Not that I am totally regarding Facebook and Twitter as the bane of education; there are even ways that these sites can be of help. But that that is for another blog post) — students become unmotivated when it comes to their studies.
For me, the very sad thing that can happen to my students is when they lose the motivation to excel in their studies. As a teacher here at AlSci, we are always encouraging our students to always be excellent in their academics, given that this school was created to cater to intellectually gifted students and train them to one day become leaders in the field of science, mathematics, and research.
The very challenge for teachers like me, nowadays, is how to fuel our students’ desire to succeed in their academics. But I think that the students should not rely on extrinsic motivation. And I guess that teachers should start refraining from giving rewards and punishment, because this further develops the students’ dependence on external factors for doing their tasks and responsibilities. What we should focus on, instead, is how to help the students’ find their intrinsic motivation.
When a student is intrinsically motivated, he will show genuine behavior. When they are after of prizes or when they fear punishment, they will modify their behavior for the sake of the winning the prize or avoiding punishment. And I don’t think it is good. I prefer that students perform their duties because they want to and that it is the right thing to do.
So,