A Seaweed For A Praise

I have shared about my difficult class this year where many children come from broken families.

They are always picking fights and complaining about one another.

I decided to infuse positivity in my class through a Praise Board where my students would be given post-it to write positive comment about their classmates.

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Each comment written would be awarded with a small pocket of seaweed as an extrinsic reward since my students cannot be motivated without a little carrot to lure them.

Awareness Of Goodness

This simple reward for a good comment is just to encourage the awareness of the good points for their classmates.

Our students often focus on the negative things of their classmates that they canoot see the goodness in them.

As educators and parents, we must believe there is goodness in every child.

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The awareness of the goodness in them would encourage them to be better.

When we focus too much on the negative things, there would be very little effort put in to change for the positive.

Brutal Fact of Current Classroom Management

There are too many problematic kids in my class this year and it is hard for me to dominate over them since there are more of them against one if I ever start to use my authority as a teacher.

It can only backfire if I try to enforce discipline the hard way.

When I cannot change the people around me so easily, I have to be the one to change.

I need to lower myself to their level and flow with them before I can direct the class current to flow with me.

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When I can capture their hearts through the soft approach, they would slowly be led to the right path.

Students nowadays know their rights and we cannot use the old methods of the almighty teacher image.

Catch them doing right

In the past, teacher would usually call to complain to parents about their children.

I would do differently. I would message parents whenever my students exhibit the right behaviours to let their parents praise and acknowledge them at home.

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We need to reset their own perception of themselves and they need to know that we are going to support them rather than against them.

This is a good approach to gain the hearts of parents and students.

Everyone likes praises. Parents and students like to hear good comments rather than the negative ones.

In Conclusion

As teachers and parents, we cannot keep to our old ways to get connected with our children.

The old ways of our parents probably do not work on them.

We must lower ourselves to their level like friends and buddies.

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We need to speak their lingo and let them know that we understand them well.

With good rapport, they listen to us more willingly.

Disclaimer: This is my personal reflection and I am not in any position to instruct anyone what they should do. I am not responsible for any action taken as a result of this post. My post can only be a reference for your further research and growth. By reading this post, you acknowledge and accept that. All images and pictures were taken from google images that are free from copyright under labelled for reuse.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://fun2learn.vornix.blog/2019/04/23/a-seaweed-for-a-praise/

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