Yesterday a friend of mine told me about a problem that about made me slap my forehead for 2 reasons; 1 because I had a good inkling of what the solution to the problem could be and 2 because I had not previously realized this to use it earlier in my own life a couple of times previously when my own kids had some problems in school with certain teachers. The problem is my friends daughter has a teacher that is basically being of no help to her in a certain subject and her grades are suffering significantly. Most times we attribute such problems to our children’s reluctance to do work that was assigned or maybe even allowing personality conflicts with a teacher to hinder if not completely stop any possibility of learning anything about a particular subject, and first reaction is always to blame the child and tell them to work harder or to try harder and sometimes this actually does solve the problem. After all when they grow up they are going to face this almost daily in their life and where better a place to learn to overcome this type of adversity than in school?
But once it’s established that it’s not the child’s fault and they are doing as much as they can to overcome this problem where does the real problem lie? Is it in the teacher, the school board, or even the education system itself? Or the worst thought of all I think “maybe they just aren’t cut out for this particular subject.” This phrase I believe should be eradicated from our vernacular as it is one of the most destructive things one can level on a child. Just by saying it creates limitations that may stand in the way in their future for a life time.
A few years before I met my wife I reached a point in my life where I was doing the same thing over and over and really I felt I had no prospect of ever achieving anything near what I had envisioned when I was younger, and I had to ask myself, “is this all there is to life?” I actually questioned all the things my parents and teachers had told me about how I could do anything at all if I just applied myself and shouldn’t let anything stand in my way. Over the years I noticed that this message went missing from a lot of the teachings I was to receive in almost every area of my life and was being replaced with the phrase “you can’t do anything unless ….” The thing with this is that it actually teaches us what is referred to as conditioned helplessness. To better illustrate here is an example of conditioned helplessness.
Many of us have been to a circus or two, and as a part of any good circus it must have ELEPHANTS! Now elephants are large and very powerful animals, once trained and utilized in combat situations of the old world. Hannibal used them to cross the Alps , and lay waste to the Roman armies. They could crush a man with one foot or with their trunk, let alone the potential to deal death and destruction with their tusks. With all this raw power why is it you see elephants when not performing in the circus out side in the back held down by a bit of chain and a large wooden stake hammered into the ground? Doesn’t the elephant know how strong he is? Do the trainers and handlers know he could simply walk away and the chain and stake would offer no resistance? Of course they do. But you see as a point in training elephants when they are very young they tie them to a post sticking out of the ground that has a solid base of concrete heavier than the elephant, so that the elephant tries and tries to walk away and only finds he can’t and eventually it accepts that they are held fast to this post and there is no escaping it, so they stop trying and from that point on they never try again believing every stake they are tied to is like the first one and accept it.
Humans it seems do the same thing as the elephants. We get used to doing things in a prescribed method or in the case of schools the preferred method is the standardized method. This would work flawlessly if we were all standardized people, but in truth we are not. Various means and methods are required to truly educate the students at any educational facility. A flexible approach in teaching is required always; the students need to be flexible to learn in different styles and ways of learning, as teachers need to be flexible in their style of teaching to truly teach the students if they are to learn anything.
As a parent I have had to learn this first hand, to get my four year old to know the value of certain things, I deduced a method to teach him and so far it works well. See my son got a dollar and bought a dollar store Yo-Yo, he was so happy he could burst with excitement. And of course in five minutes after we left the store and he dropped it and it shattered. The next one was a bit better a two dollar Yo-Yo from a bit better store. That one lasted a couple of hours before his little brother took it and hit the wall with it and it broke. Now he knows 1 dollar was wasted in 5 minutes and 2 dollars was wasted in a couple of hours. But a good Yo-Yo that wont break so easy costs five dollars! He wants this Yo-Yo pretty bad and he’s going have to work to get it. But in this he also now understand that our TV cost’s 40 Yo-Yo’s, His bike costs 6 Yo-Yo’s, and 1 happy meal from Mc Donald’s is almost as much as 1 Yo-Yo. I couldn’t be prouder! I’m his Dad and one of his teacher’s. When I saw he didn’t understand larger numbers beyond 10 yet, I noticed he understood 5 in relations to the cost of the Yo-Yo and I was flexible enough to see if he knew this he could learn larger numbers easily with the right reference to draw from. I have to admit yes it’s cute and I’m going to enjoy it as long as I can. But I will keep looking for better ways to teach him that allow him understand easier and better, I expect no less of anyone else that makes their career or had the urge and passion to follow their dreams to teach as a career.
Most teachers I believe are out there doing everything they can think of to teach the students they have in their class. But even one bad teacher can give the impression that all of them are just there to follow a curriculum and/or a book and let those who “get it” learn. In either case they all get paid to do their job to educate others. The pay rate in some cases can be very insulting. But either way if you look at what they make.
That’s a lot of Yo-Yo’s!
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