Create Confidence and Hope
Ensure Proficiency in Foundational Skills There is simply no substitute for the acquisition, mastery, and application of basic literacy skills, although technology continually finds substitutes. If you can’t read, you can listen to prerecorded books. If you don’t know directions, just plug in the desired address, and your phone or GPS will get you there. If you can’t do basic mathematics, just whip out your trusty calculator. Want to listen to music or keep up with current events? Ask Alexa. It may well be that the utility of everything we teach can be called to question! That said, the vast majority of students must have basic reading, writing, mathematics, listening, and technology skills as a basis for success in life. Without these skills, there is no amount of support, praise, or encouragement that will sustain learning. Therefore, I suggest making sure students acquire these skills. While I’m not a big fan of rewards, use them if necessary. Earning a bonus coupon that allows for skipping homework if Carly reads two pages in class is probably worth the trade-off if it moves her from refusal to read to reading more than she otherwise would. (Students who refuse to read probably aren’t doing homework either.) There are times when forceful yet dignified confrontation is most effective with students who misguidedly satisfy their need for control or power, or cope with their fear of failure, by refusing to try. Link the refusal to fear and efforts to achieve to heroism. For example: “Juran, students who don’t work and won’t try are usually afraid to fail. Doing nothing is the safe play. It is what some
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best to explain when they might use what you are teaching, you might not always know. You might say, for example, “Not everything I teach will always make sense to you right away. I will do my best to explain, and I’ll even try to help you see how you might actually need or use what you are learning. Sometimes you’ll just have to trust that what I am teaching is important to learn for now, even if it seems confusing, silly, or unnecessary.”
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