I read of 55,000 pupils skipping lessons without permission on a typical day.
I had three solutions when I taught.
First, I never punished pupils for being late but rather welcomed them when they did arrive with a big smile. I thought - Let's give them a reason for wanting to come to school and make them feel welcome.
Second, I made sure that my lessons where as much fun as possible. My pupils all loved a challenge with rewards of recognition when they achieved.
Third, I never punished for lack of homework but rather rewarded strongly every attempt for doing it. On a few occasions I found pupils getting so fully wrapped up in the topic that had been set that they spent a whole weekend at it and produced a magnum opus on their return on Monday morning. They had discovered what learning for themselves was all about.
No wonder my form, which I had for five years on a trot, ended up streaks ahead of the rest with them achieving 50% A-Cs when the rest of the school achieved 25%.
Positive encouragment works wonders.
It works for dogs.
It works for small kids
It works for teenagers.
It even works for adults.
2 comments:
I am sure it does work Geoff for Dogs and Small Children their responses are Pavlovian and not Cognitive for the most part,However Teenagers I wonder.
They are having Me Me Me thrown at them from all angles.
I have been Emailing TV and Print News Outlets all over Europe whilst Looking for Email Addresses I notice Mindless Dubbed Drivel from LA All the subtext is about mindless consumerism and violence.
What chance do Teenagers have when they are bombarded with drivel.
I remember as a Teenager my favorite show was The Tomorrow People The Tomorrow People were nice to other people.
My Favorite Video Game was called Out Run a car game driving up The PCH with a cute bimbo that no doubt had a 818 Accent and used the word LIKE as a noun,verb and adjective but she was nice.
Today all the violence in video games awful.
If you were to look at Anderson's if Violence at the end but that violence was integral to the integrity of the script not just violence for the sake of violence.
When I was a Teenager if Mr Dellow was nice to me as a teacher I would have called you Sir and washed your car as you were nice you did not punish me but worked on positive re enforcement however I fear kids today would see you as a soft touch.....
Our school attracted all the borough's misfits so there was none of this 'being nice to teacher'. The memory that stands out regarding my mode of transport was when one of my form loosened my front brake cable which I discovered going home down the hill from school. "It was just a prank sir."
For me being "nice" doesn't come naturally - seeing another human being, I hope, does.
When I visited 'posh' schools and they were super-respectful (but at the same time superior) I tried to 'throw' their responses a little - it really niggled.
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