Posts Tagged Empower Students

The Best Way to Help Students Succeed

All teachers and parents want to help students succeed. The question is: How? Research shows that one of the most important factors that determine students’ success (in terms of what is important to students) is their feeling or belief that someone in school cares about them.

Knowing this, I’ve long proposed that the best way to help students succeed is to ask them questions. Why? Because a significant factor in asking a question is that there is an assumption that you care about the person with whom you are conversing.

Therefore, when communicating with others, especially students, instead of thinking of the right thing to say, think of a question to ask. The sooner you adopt the mode of asking … >>>

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Help Students Feel Safe

All students have two questions when they first enter any classroom:
(1) Will I fit in?
(2) Will I succeed?

Following are two simple ways to empower students so that their self-talk will be in the affirmative.

For the first question (Will I fit in?), reduce anonymity. Start the class by having students share the name they would like to be called and have them share one personal fact about themselves. It can be a hobby, a special interest, how they enjoy spending their time, a favorite movie, a special song—anything that others in the class can relate to about each student.

For the second question (Will I succeed?), use an empowering approach. Start an assignment or give a test … >>>

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Thinking, Beliefs, and Learning

I often write and talk about helping students avoid victimhood-thinking. But it’s equally important for teachers to avoid the victimization mentality as well. Thinking like a victim is toxically disempowering. Empowerment is so much more effective. And even if it were not, you would still be happier in an empowerment mode than in a victimhood mode.

While many teachers believe that they do avoid such negative thinking, one recent staff discussion demonstrated that a change in mindset would be required for some teachers to leave the victimhood realm. Believing that learning is prohibited because students come from unstructured homes, from poverty, or have some other situation that cannot be changed is a mindset of victimhood thinking—ON THE PART OF THE … >>>

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