“October Sky”: A motivating movie on motivation

By Laura Powell
EDI 15A: Psychological Perspective: Teaching & Learning
College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March 25, 2010

Today’s class started out with finishing up October Sky. Homer did end up going to the science fair and winning it all. The last scene I thought had a huge impact on me because it was a very emotional scene. Homer’s dad after all of his attempts to change Homer’s mind and make him want to mine etc. finally came to watch Homer’s last rocket go off. Homer gave his dad this whole speech about how his dad was his hero and it was very inspirational and emotional for me. I really enjoyed the last couple of scenes; it was really courageous and noble of Homer to ask his dad to launch the final rocket.

Overall it was a great motivational film and I would love to watch it again. I even think that it is a good film to show to my classes as a teacher because it really shows how far true motivation brings you. I was really surprised to find out this was a true story and thought it was amazing that Homer and the Rocket boys were that determined to make it as far as they did. In the beginning I thought that this was a written story for the sole purpose of explaining motivation but it was a real story and that fact is an even stronger argument that motivation can bring you anywhere, even space. As a teacher I will have to remember to always motivate my students to reach their best potential.

For the rest of class we learned ways that people are motivated which will be very useful when I begin teaching in my own classroom. There are five different perspectives on motivation, behaviorist, social cognitive, trait, cognitive, and humanistic. All of these will be useful when entering a classroom. Every student is motivated differently in different situations, I will have to remember these perspectives and use them to make my students want to reach their fullest potential and their goals. I really enjoyed learning about motivation and watching such and influential movie. I think motivation is extremely important for a child’s development and teachers and parents should be there for our students.