Posts Tagged motivating

Motivating a Student

On December 18, 2012 / Learning

This post is about a communication I received from a teacher in Pakistan and my response to help her motivate a student.

Her communication:
“Thank you very much to enlighten us with your great thought-provoking ideas. I am a very regular reader of your newsletters. My question is: As a teacher, one cannot inculcate any skill to a child if there is no will. How can we work on will of a student?”

My response:

Excellent question!

You are right when you refer to not being able to inculcate a skill in a child who has no will. Therefore, the question becomes, “How can you create interest so that the young person will WANT to do what you would like?”… >>>

The Wrong Way to Fix

On February 17, 2011 / Relationships

We are trained in a deficit model—to fix what is wrong. In a very real sense, our attention is geared at fixing others.

After a meeting with teachers, the student said to his mother, “Why didn’t they talk more about my social studies—what I am good at instead of what I am not good at. All they want to do is fix what is wrong with me.”

The mother responded by saying, “They are trying to help you.”

The student retorted, “No, they are trying to fix me.”

Such are the perceptions of the parent and child. What should it be for the teacher? The answer lies in the question, “What optimizes learning?”

Great teachers know that learning is based … >>>