This author acknowledges that teachers agree that "adolescents aren't always interested in the topics adults consider important for them to learn." It is easy for adults who have forgotten the wonder and uncertainty of the adolescent years to declare that students today are more uninterested in school and undisciplined in life than "they" were at that age. It is true that instructing a class of adolescents is no easy feat, and the author asks "what keeps middle schoolers in the room and engaged?" Part of that answer can be found by considering what common practices "don't" motivate young adolescents. Wormeli provides six approaches that can be "motivators" to students, and also includes another twelve that act as "demotivators," based upon the general principle that when it comes to fostering cognitive perseverance, carrots and sticks do not work. The author concludes that schools of teacher preparation should provide coursework in motivation studies for new teachers, because inspiring everyone they teach will be crucial to their success. Without serious training in student motivation, new teachers are left with a limited repertoire of responses and unexamined--sometimes harmful--notions of what inspires middle-grade students to engage in something new or stick with something challenging.