If you ever wondered why you cannot (or could not) learn any given topic without pain and suffering, this article will be very interesting for you. In it, I am describing which is one of the most common ideas you could have set in your mind to block your ability to continue learning, and how you can either beat them or help your children and students beat them for you... and ultimately for themselves.
The idea of this article came after discussing for a long while with many random people what could be done to improve the education levels of the next generations. I started asking about this topic after talking with a few friends of mine, all businessmen, and realising that the main preoccupation they had for their following years in their businesses and markets was the increasing lack of capable professionals when time comes to hire new personnel. They either didn't meet the educational requirements of the positions they were applying to, or didn't behave professionally enough when hired. No surprise why so many young adults in Europe can be twenty-eight years old and still work in a supermarket.
When talking with teachers, they usually blamed parents for the poor education (read, habits and behaviour) their pupils received at home. When talking with parents, they usually blamed teachers for the poor knowledge their children received in schools. Some parents even stated that their children were taught in fifth grade what they were taught in third... and proved it. When talking to businessmen, they were afraid of something: If this situation did not revert in the following years, the future of their companies would be condemned, as they will not be able to find capable professionals to carry on with the efforts they have made for years or decades.
One of the most common problems both parents and teachers face when discussing the responsibility for providing a good education to their next generations is the fact that most of the times it seems that these guys and girls (that is, your kids) don't give a... cent for what you are trying to do for them. Moreover, it seems the more you try to keep them motivated the more they rebel from your wishes and neglect their studies. Is there any way to fight this and have your children get ready (and willing) to learn instead of to slack?
In the same fashion, is there any way for you, who are (very likely) already an adult to improve your own learning capabilities in order to become a better person and professional in both the short and long term?
Asking students what they thought about this problem, we found that they answers were very interesting.
Students stated that some of the subjects they studied were either hard or boring. When they were asked why they thought those topics were hard or boring, however, these same students failed to give a concrete personal answer. They kept saying "I don't know, it's just boring", "I don't really care about that", "what's the use of learning it, anyway?" or similar ideas. For me, this was a sign that the above-mentioned ideas were not really theirs, and made me make up my mind for carrying out an experiment about it.
With this in mind, I asked a teacher friend of mine, who, by the way, was suffering from the same kind of problem with her own students during her English course, if she could help me with this research carrying out an experiment with their own students. She thought she had nothing to lose and she accepted the challenge. After a month, we met again and we talked about her findings. The first thing she told me is that the results of the experiment were very interesting.
During that month, her students improved greatly their performance in class, and even those students who were about to flunk the subject recovered their bad grades. In addition, she told me that her students were attending her class in a more cheery way. They were concentrated, willing to participate in the exercises, handing in their homework timely and well, and the absences lowered, though they didn't disappear.
When I asked her if she noticed any change in her own attitude towards her students and her subject during this month, she stated that she now felt more motivated to prepare her lessons and that, given the fact her students were learning well, she could even make her teaching a little more demanding and still get good results.
What did I ask her to do? I asked her to start saying, before teaching any new or important topic, that now she was going to teach something it was very interesting... period.
When my friend started using this line in class, she noticed that her students soon stopped doing what they were doing and raised their faces to pay attention to this new "very interesting" information. According to her experience, receiving this new information with a positive presentation made her students feel curious and motivated to receive it.
"It seems everybody likes to receive nice and interesting things", she said, and I couldn't agree more. She thanked me a lot for this great idea I had and she told me she was even planning to use it with other students right after the vacations were over.
To end my conversation with her, I asked her whether she found any negative reaction to her "this is very interesting" preamble during her lessons.
"Just once", she said. "One day, after giving my lesson, one of my pupils commented 'madam, that was not interesting' in front of everybody else! I almost thought he was going to ruin the experiment, you know?"
"What happened?", I asked.
"The rest of the class asked him to be quiet because they did find it interesting!", she said. "That saved the strategy!".
This experiment helped us reach two conclusions I would like to share with you today:
If you are head of a number of students you can have them be more willing to learn giving them a positive line before presenting them the new information you are willing to give them. If done consistently, you will see your students grow a positive attitude before you and your subject, and that may help you become a better teacher for them, too.
If you are already grown up, you can still make this positive idea work for you. During your life, you have received negative comments about learning new things; but you are still curious about learning about the latest gossips of the superstars. If you think it twice, you are not unable to learn. You have just programmed yourself not to learn more useful things any more. Now that you have learned the very interesting effect of seeing things under a positive brighter side, if you want, you can rediscover all those things you once wanted to do or learn and you didn't because your found them "boring", "dull", "hard" or "useless". Learning new things is very interesting and useful for you! Go for it!
Word of warning: This is not a panacea. The teacher I mentioned in this article and I just made one successful experiment which cannot be taken as a determinant proof that my theory is absolutely correct. Take this as a first positive result only, and try to complete similar researches in your area, if possible.
We have not tested what would happen if more than one teacher used the same line in more than one subject, we have not tested what would happen under certain given special conditions such as using this approach with children who come from rather difficult situations such as familiar violence, extreme poverty or others. More research needs to be done.
Last but not least, we need to accept something that just like some kids are tall and others, short; some fat and others, slim; some are active and others are more introvert; not every child in the world will respond in the same manner to this sort of "therapy of positivism". Teachers still need to identify which is the best teaching approach for each student and prepare their lessons accordingly.
Although this is a very interesting finding, anyway.
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