"Without a purpose our only motivation is reward and punishment."

How do you help a kindergartner find their purpose?

I reflected on this last night as I sat in class. I saw the faces of my kindergarten students. I heard the words that I have spoken as I have taught them. Dr. M., my university professor, often warned of using behaviorism. Even now, when she comes for observations, she points out that students must be inwardly motivated to do the right thing. Little by little, I am seeing her point. I HATE being a mean teacher. But what I hate even more is allowing chaos in my classroom. The result? Classroom discipline. The obvious choice to most teachers is some kind of reward and punishment system. Dr. M., so far, has looked down at my attempts. With nineteen five and six year olds bouncing off the walls time does not always allow for pulling a student aside to discuss behavior. What I want is for them to be self-controlled and kind to one another without having to be reminded. I forget sometimes that they are in my classroom to learn these skills. So how do I unlock the internal motivators? If I can figure this out, it might be life changing to teach children without holding punishments or rewards over their head every second of the day.