- I commit to the philosophy that the primary mover/motivator of children is positive attention and praise. If I do not praise each child once a day for the things I expect or for the things I hope they learn to value I am not an effective educator.
- Children are like plants. Parts of plants that recieve light will grow, parts that do not will wither and eventually die. Praise is the light; patient ignoring is the lack of light. A lot of us do things backwards. We give attention to the things we'd like to see decrease. We focus our attention on poor performance rather than good performance. Something to think about: If you were to give positive, specific feedback to students right when they are doing something right, what do you think might happen?
- Catching people doing things right, instead of calling attention to what they are doing wrong, is hard because it takes patience and self-control. We have to change what we are looking for. It’s all about what we focus on. We need a way to focus on what is superior and humanitarian in people.
- We might first see that people are doing things in a better way because they want the attention and praise. Our goal is to get them to do the right thing because they themselves enjoy doing it. We want to help them become self-motivated.
Process
- When a negative behavior occurs, we have two choices: 1) Give no attention to the negative behavior, while at the same time giving a lot of attention to others are are doing the right thing, 2) If that does not motivate the person to do the right thing, then we redirect.
Redirection
• Describe the error or problem as soon as possible, clearly and without blame.
Ex: Talking with friends during group work time isn't helpful.
• Show it’s negative impact.
Ex: You could fall behind if you don't use this time to work together on the project and learn it for yourselves.
• If appropriate, take the blame for not making the task clear.
Ex: Maybe I didn't tell you that before. My fault. This group work time is about talking about and working on the project.
• Go over the task in detail and make sure it is clearly understood.
Ex: I need your group to work together to design and test this car to see how it will function best. First, I'd like you to...then you might want to...
• Express you continuing trust in the person.
Ex: I know you'll end up developing something really amazing. I can't wait to see what you come up with.
In this way of interacting, no person's sense of self-worth has been damaged.
Redirection can also be done in this way:
• Describe the error or problem as soon as possible, clearly and without blame. Ex: Talking with friends during group work time isn't helpful.
• Show it’s negative impact. Ex: There's a lot to be done with this experiment, and you could fall behind.
• If appropriate, take the blame for not making the task clear. Ex: You know, maybe it's my fault that I didn't say this before, but you don't have to focus on testing the car right now. You could also try going back to the drawing board and brainstorming ways on paper that would help in the design of your car.
• Go over the task in detail and make sure it is clearly understood. Ex: You could set the car aside for now and work together to draw out different components of your car that need work. You could even use colored pencils to show how different parts of your car perform specific functions.
• Express you continuing trust in the person. Ex: I know you'll end up developing something really amazing. I can't wait to see what you come up with.
Again, no person's sense of self-worth has been damaged. With this approach, you are redirecting them to another task they could be working on.
Comments (8)
Chris said
at 10:18 am on Mar 8, 2006
I remember when I first started teaching at Park View, Judy Porst would travel around the school, notepad in hand, and drop by my classroom unnanounced. She would sit quietly in the back of the room observing...everything it turned out. She would stay five minutes and when she left she'd leave a page from her notepad with 5 positive comments about my teaching, the set-up of the room, or the lesson. Just positive comments. It was called 5 in 5. It meant so much to me as a new teacher to know that an administrator cared about what was happening in our classroom. As a seasoned teacher, I would love to have the opportunity to visit other classrooms and, as a fellow professional, offer my colleagues 5 in 5.
nirvin said
at 12:15 pm on Mar 8, 2006
I agree, and now for another anecdote. Larry's starting this at his school (peer observation) and they are making notepads for the teachers with key words on the bottom (like a little word box). I forget what the actual words are--either best practice terms or their departmental goals or something, but they're specifically for a 5 in 5 type of thing. (A funny note: I was the one who suggested to Larry that they make this into an actual notepad. He was telling his graduate advisor about the notepad and acknowledged that it was actually his wife's idea. The advisor said, "Let me guess--she's an elementary school teacher.")
Chris said
at 12:32 pm on Mar 8, 2006
I give so much thought to the praise and positive feedback that I give the kids, I want someone to pay attention to me. I'm learning everyday. I want someone to acknowledge what I've learned and/or still need to learn.
mnovak said
at 9:19 pm on Mar 8, 2006
That's what was great about EO. He engaged in that completely if you asked him. Maybe we could think about a model where we do that for each other? Maybe that could be a topic also at the brown bag? I would love someone to do that for me.... would others want us to do it for them? Its kind of trust/leap of faith thing to try to do for each ohter... EO built that trust over many interactions with me where he helped support my discipline decisions... then after a year of that I was ready to trust to look to him for the next step.
Jen said
at 12:45 pm on Mar 26, 2006
I hadn't read this discussion before, but wow, CK, I was just reading through the many "5 in 5s" that I have saved in a folder in my file cabinet, right next to the relatively meaningless formal evaluations...those 5 in 5s were great. I think we should reinstate this on our own if the administration gives us the go ahead...
I'm so glad Larry is instituting this in his school. Just out of curiousity, is everyone eligible to do this informal observation, or just certain teachers? How is it working? I love the notepad idea...it could be geared specifically toward common goals we set out as a staff...maybe even the mission statement could be on it...
Jen said
at 12:47 pm on Mar 26, 2006
MN, can you elaborate, here or in person, about you and EO and what you did together, the "next step" you refer to?
Jen said
at 12:50 pm on Mar 26, 2006
I am going to pick up a book at the library called "Punishment by Rewards" that I heard about a long time ago...not to be completely against all of the praise you all give to positive attention and praise, and those of you who know my teaching know I give it, too, but sometimes I think too much of a good thing can go bad...I'll read and tell you what I find out...
nirvin said
at 10:43 am on Apr 17, 2006
To answer Jen's question about how the peer observations are going at Larry's school...They are only happening in the science dep't (for now) because this all started when the science chairwoman came to Larry and wanted to discuss ways to improve instruction or at least get a discussion going with her teachers. The buzzwords they put on the pad of paper represent six domains (student engagement, challenging content, lesson design...) that have a wealth of literature behind them. The department got together and briefly discussed the buzzwords at the onset of this, but Larry said ideally they also would have discussed how to do a five-minute walk through of a classroom. He hasn't talked to the chair very recently, but when he does (and reports back to me) I'll let you know how it's going.
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