No Red Pill, No Blue Pill - Response

How can you succeed without motivation? A question asked by many, especially teachers, coaches, really anyone that is trying to motivate someone to succeed. One really only succeeds if the motivation is there pushing you along the way. There is no easy way. No red pill, no blue pill.

   No Red Pill, No Blue Pill by Ana Cristina Pratas is an extraordinary article, it discusses how learning is difficult, tough, and really up to you for it is you who needs to summon your motivation to learn to truly absorb all the knowledge being thrown at you in school. It speaks out about how learning is a tough road, and as much as you want to blame your failures on your teacher you really shouldn’t. Learning is a two way road, a shared experience you may call it, because your teacher provides you with the information but it is up to you to motivate yourself, and pay attention.

  Walking around the school hallway and conversing with friends you tend to hear things like “oh man, I only failed because that teacher sucked!” or “I didn’t learn anything from that class, it was so boring I wasn’t even paying attention.” I know as students it is hard to get the thought through your head that teachers are human beings too; they feel emotions and do normal things like go shopping. What I believe Ana is expressing is that blaming your teachers on your failure of succession is like blaming your siblings for something that you did. It’s what we call the easy way out. Teachers dish out information and give us homework and projects and I understand that you want to just go home and relax after a long day of school, but what they’re giving us is what is going to lead us to success. Learning is a tough and difficult process, and motivation and attitude are essential, you need to be 100 percent willing to take hold of the knowledge being given to you, practice it and apply it to everyday life.

  Reading this article as a student, I believe that Ana is targeting students but also targeting teachers in a way. After reading this article, you really realize how much of your learning depends on how motivated you are, and how determined you are. If you are not in the right mind set then of course failure will succumb. Looking at this through a teacher’s perspective, they have to realize that yes the students are doing their job to motivate themselves as learners but as educators you need to be willing to help motivate the students. It’s like a partnership; you can’t leave your partner hanging. Both the students and the teachers have to step up and help each other, it will not only benefit the student but teachers will feel a sense of accomplishment.

  I definitely feel that this article connects to our English class, but is not limited to only this one class. I believe her message about motivation within us can be applied to school in general. Looking around in my classes I can always find one or two kids on their phones, chatting instead of doing work, and there are almost always a handful of people who don’t do their homework and study for tests, the lack of motivation at its finest.

In my opinion I agree on her ideas expressed within this article, it is true that many of us are not as motivated as we were before, the question is why? Could it be because of technology? The way we live compared to back in the day? Of course the answer is inside of you, because it differs with everyone. There is no set answer in my opinion, we just have to dig deep within ourselves and look for the motivation buried deep within.

This was a very intriguing, thought-provoking article, and I think everyone should take a look at it.