Ask For Help

It seems the hardest thing for most people is to ask for help. We see this act as a sign of weakness. When we are very young, we want independence. Then as we are growing up, when we ask for help, we are encouraged to try to do it ourselves. So, when we get older and we really do need help, we don’t ask for it. Maybe we need to teach students when it is actually appropriate to ask for help and that asking for help is not a bad thing.

My husband will lift things that are too heavy for him even though he knows his back will pay for it later. I think he doesn’t want to admit that he is getting older and needs help.

I am at the end of two courses that I teach online. Every week I send an email, summarizing this coming week’s assignments and letting people know I’m available for help. I tell them to call, text, email, or set up a zoom meeting with me. I’m here to answer any questions or concerns they may have.

Since we have the final exam this week, I sent out a study guide and encouraged students to reach out to me. I really want my students to do well on the exam. Only one student contacted me and we went over things she needed to pay attention to for the exam.

I can’t make my students ask for help but I’m sure more than one student has questions or concerns. Have I given them some reason that they don’t feel they can reach out to me? Have I tried to keep the lines of communication open? Is this normal for online courses? What can I do differently to help students interact with me? These are some of the questions I have rattling around my head.

How can we break this cycle of students not asking for help when they need it? What do you think? Please share.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Don’t Stop and Wait

In The power of TK from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin shares

“It’s what you write when there’s a fact or addition you’re waiting on. Instead of stopping everything, simply type “TK” and you know you can come back and fix it later.”

When my students need help, many will raise their hands and stop working. I sometimes will acknowledge that I see they need help but ask them to skip that problem and go on to the next one until I can help them. Sometimes they get impatient and either figure it out themselves or ask a classmate for help.

Then after eating at a restaurant and seeing a neat strategy they use to help better service, I thought I could use the same strategy in my class.

I cut red and green foam boards into squares and glued the squares together. On the red side, I wrote HELP and on the green side, I wrote OK. Each student has this square on the corner of their desk. When they need help, they turn it over to the red and after I help them I turn it over to the green. When I’m done helping a student, I can glance around the room and see who else needs help. The students don’t waste time sitting there with their hands up and then give up or have to wait until I look up again to raise their hand. I could tell their frustration and impatience were much lower with this simple strategy. The students seemed to like this system also.

By using this strategy, students were completing more assignments and were more successful in the classroom.

What strategy do you use to help students get help? Please share.

Photo by Jorge Rojas on Unsplash

Helplessness

Many of my students with disabilities feel helpless especially when they are overwhelmed. For so many years they have faced many failures and very few successes. They have been judged by others including family and friends as being lazy or stupid. Every time they try and make an effort, they feel like they are kicked down. They start believing that maybe they are lazy and stupid so why bother even trying. Life looks hopeless to them.

I believe this is a feeling is learned helplessness and I spend a lot of time fighting it. I want to try to break this cycle and turn their lives around.

My words won’t do it because they have had so many years of practice hearing the negative words. Why should they believe me who they have only known for a short time while all the others in their world tell them differently? I could talk until I’m blue in the face but they won’t believe me. I have to find a way to show them.

I start by doing a lot of pretesting so I can find out their instructional levels. This is important because I want to begin with something they know how to do that is right at the edge of what they don’t know how to do. I want to do a lot of activities during the first couple of weeks that I know they can be successful doing. I praise and encourage them a lot during this time including phone calls home letting their family know how well they are doing. My students aren’t fooled though and are a little suspicious but I keep plodding on.

After I feel they are comfortable with my process, I slip in a few harder tasks that I know they can do successfully with my help. Again, a lot of praise and encouragement goes a long way. Some of my students are surprised they are successful but they are afraid to hope. During this time, I have to be very patient and encouraging with my students because they are waiting for the shoe to fall and failure to occur again. Eventually, I will have them do the work while slowly taking away my help. It is like teaching a child to ride a bicycle and you hold the bike for a while until you have to let go so they can do it on their own. This may take another month or two but it is important to be patient.

I spend a lot of time the whole year talking to the students about taking a risk and trying harder things because I’m here to help them. I won’t let them fail. If I see them falling, I will be there to catch them. If they fall down, I will be there to help them get up. They are not alone.

I explain that everyone faces failures but what they do after them is what counts. President Lincoln ran for different political offices several times before he eventually became President. He didn’t give up and his failures made him more determined to succeed. Even Bill Gates had several failures before he found Microsoft. The ones that you never hear about are the ones that gave up after failing.

Before long, my students will start adding successes to their list of things they do and will have more courage to learn new things. My next step is to teach them what to do when I am not there and they leave my classroom. How do they go about finding help for what they want to learn? This is an important step to teaching independence.

Eventually, their helplessness begins to fade away, and hope for success takes its place.

How do you battle helplessness? Please share.

Photo by Roi Dimor on Unsplash

Bibs and Aprons

In What Do You Wear? A Bib or Apron from Cool Cat Teacher Blog by coolcatteacher@gmail.com, Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher, shares,

“Once I heard a person talk about relationships like a gas tank. You’re either filling the tank (wearing an apron) or causing the person to expend energy on you (bib.) If you use too much of their energy without putting anything back, people will eventually no longer want to be around you.”

This really resounded with me. I think most people wear both at different times in their lives. I don’t it is possible to be one or the other.

I think most people would like to think they are wearing an apron and helping others. By doing this you feel more in charge. You are the one taking action.

When you are wearing the bib, or you are having other people put energy on you, then you are the passive person. It is hard to always be the one taking. I think this hurts people's self-concept.

That is why I think it is important to wear the apron and the bib at different times when you need to. You shouldn’t be embarrassed about wearing either one of them. The only time we should worry if we do one exclusively because I don’t think that is healthy.

As parents, we like our children to learn to give. We teach them it is better to give than to take. I think that is why it is hard for some children to learn because they are embarrassed about being on the other side. They see that being helped is a weakness and they don’t want to appear to be weak.

We should teach our children that it is good to give and take. The important thing is the balance of give-and-take. We shouldn't constantly be giving so much that we lose ourselves in the giving. Sometimes we forget to watch out for ourselves and our health when we keep giving. When we keep taking from others, we tend to be spoiled and we forget how to put in hard work to make things happen.

People don't mind helping others but when they feel they are giving all the time and the other person is taking all the time, they feel unappreciated or being taken for granted. In the same respect those people who are always being helped, may experience learned helplessness or feel like they are not capable of doing something. This may cause them to be afraid to try new things.

How do you feel about aprons and bibs? Which one do you wear? Please share.

Photo: 123 Bib for Marlysa by Amy White

Inviting The Student In

In The Open Door Isn’t Always Open from  Practical Theory, Chris Lehmann shares,

“Some students need to be invited to come for extra help. Some students need to be told that the teacher wants to see them. That individualized attention where a student feels the personal investment of a teacher is invaluable.”

If I waited for my students to show up for extra help, it would never happen. First of all, students see asking for help as a sign of weakness and they don’t want their peers to see them as weak. Sometimes kids can be like a pack of dogs and they will attack the weak one.  Plus, they are trying to grow into their own skin and want to be independent so by needing help, they lack the independence that they crave. They also want to be like their peers and if their peers don’t need extra help, then they do not want to be the odd one and need help. If you are different, you tend to stand out instead of belong.

I try to help the students by taking this decision away from them. I schedule everyone to have a personal appointment with me. During this time, we can discuss problems they are having or talk about a hobby they love but everyone gets time with the teacher. Then, if I feel someone needs extra help with specific skills, I can use this time to help them. Sometimes I learn more about my students during this time and find out what their interests are. If I need to schedule another appointment, then we talk about the best way for the student to handle this. Sometimes they can share with their friends that I want to know more about their particular hobby or that I need some help with something I’m doing. Either way, I try to help them save face in front of their friends because I don’t care how we work it out as long as the student is getting the extra help they need. This also helps the students who don’t need the help because they are also getting some extra attention since they are usually the ones who get ignored or fall through the cracks. They might not need help with classwork but it might help them to talk about other things.

Sometimes you can’t expect students to take the first step. As the professional, you have to take the first step and show them how to get help. Over time you can teach them that asking for help is not something to be ashamed about but first you have to earn their trust. You can assume that students know how to ask for help or willing to take the risk of doing this. They are afraid they will lose more than they will gain. With your experience and wisdom, you know better but you didn’t when you were young. Someone guided you and helped you through this risky time in your life. Be the same lifesaver for someone else. Invite the student in.