Laziness is Fear

In Discipline vs. fairness from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin shares,

“The opposite of discipline is actually laziness, and that’s often associated with fear. Fear of responsibility and fear of the truth. Responsibility and truth are required if we’re going to get on the right track.”

Sometimes when my students appear lazy, it is actually because they are immobilized by fear. You have heard the saying, “deer in headlights?” That is exactly what my students remind me of when I announce we are starting some new skill. They immediately go on the defensive and I can feel the “fight or flight” atmosphere infect the whole class. My students seem to be thinking of ways they can get out of this situation immediately. Suddenly some students find the need to desperately go to the bathroom. Others begin to act silly to distract the class. Some may start doing something at their desks rather than pay attention to what I’m saying. All of these things are common for my students. They are so used to failure that they fear taking the risk to learn something new. Many are not willing to fall down one more time.

It is this situation that makes my introduction to a new lesson so important! I need to find the “hook” that makes them want to learn more. I want them to be just a little curious enough to want to learn a little more. I want them to be just a little interested that they want to fight to learn instead of taking flight. By being really excited about my lesson, they will want to know what the excitement is all about. They can choose to exhibit their defensive behaviors after they find out what this is all about. Then when they get hooked, they will forget about their defensive behaviors.

While I’m getting them excited about the lesson, I continually let them know that they are not alone. They can ask me for help or they can ask their classmates. We will learn together. Knowing that they are not alone is also helpful to the students. When you feel safer, it is easier to take risks.

So when students look lazy, I need to look beyond their behavior. I need to ask myself why they are acting this way. Usually, I find out that none of my students are lazy. They are just afraid. Wouldn’t I act the same way if I had intense fear? How would I behave if I knew there was someone there to catch me if I fell?

How do you get your students past the fear? Please share.

Photo by Anderson Rian on Unsplash

Zing

(During the summer months, I like to take the A-Z Challenge and come up with words alphabetically and see how they apply to education. I think it’s a great exercise for teachers and students to give this a try. This is my last one in the series and I hope you enjoyed them.)

If you’ve ever watched the movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, you will be able to commiserate with the students who are sitting in a class while a teacher calls out names in a monotone voice. One can only imagine what his teaching must be like! Nothing is worse than sitting in a class where not only are you bored learning the topic but the teacher is also bored teaching the topic!

Before I plan a lesson, I try to think about why I’m excited about this topic. If it is one of the course requirements or required to meet standards, then I ask what aspect of this can I make exciting. What can I do to make this an interesting lesson for both myself and the students? I want to put a little zing in the lesson.

If I’m excited about a lesson, my excitement usually rolls over to the students. They can’t help themselves. Of course, they might act bored or too cool to be in school, but I believe there is a tiny spark hidden in them that makes them want to know more. This is the zing that I believe should be in every one of my lessons.

There might be a certain point of view that I think would be interesting to look at. Or there might be a specific event or person that we want to know more about. We might want to dig below the surface of the information we have in order to find out the motivation for the event.

I might ask students what would bring out the zing in a lesson. They may have additional ideas that I hadn’t thought of. Students love the chance to give input and even appreciate it more when I listen and use some of their ideas! When students feel they have input, they tend to be more engaged in the lesson.

What do you do to bring zing in your lessons? Please share.

Photo by Genessa Panainte on Unsplash

Introductions are Important

In Doing Your Best Work from @DavidGeurin Blog, the author states,

“We do our best work because we want to, not because we have to.”

If it is something I want or need, I will be more motivated to do the work to reach my goal.

Let’s face it, I hate housework. I do it because it is time to do it when I’m embarrassed about how bad my house looks. I don’t want to do it but I need to do it. I don’t consider it fun.

If it is something I want to do or want to accomplish, I usually enjoy it much more but when it becomes an obligation, then I dread doing it.

My students feel the same way.

If I just teach lessons they need to learn and the only purpose I can give them is because I have to teach this or you have to learn it to pass the final test, then I will face resistance to the learning.

They either won’t bother trying to learn it or even remember it. This information means nothing to them.

I need to find the catch that will make it relevant to them. I need to figure out a way to make them want to do the work.

Many times teachers tend to pay more intention to the procedure or activities instead of the introduction. They see the introduction as just a small part of the lesson. Instead, teachers need to see the introduction as the marketing tool for the lesson.

First impressions are so important. That is why the introduction to any lesson is vital to the success of the lesson. If you can hook the students into the learning and make them want to learn more, you have a much better chance of them actively learning and retaining the new information they learn.

Procedures and activities are important too because that is where the students will get the actual learning, but this process will be much easier if the students are engaged in the learning. Without a catching introduction, the rest of the lesson may feel like pushing a heavy-laden wheelbarrow up a steep hill. You hopefully will reach the top of the hill but it will be much harder than if you were going downhill.

We need to learn to teach smarter and not harder.

Do you do anything special to introduce a lesson? If so, please share.

Photo by Hannah Loreen on Unsplash

The Perfect Lesson

In The enthusiasm correlation from Seth Godin's Blog, Seth Godin states,

“The question: were they enthusiastic because it was a great event? Or did it feel like a great event because they were enthusiastic?”

This had me thinking about my classroom lessons. Some of my lessons are better than others. Sometimes the lessons I think will be great, turn out to be a flop and the ones I think are just okay will be the most engaging.

 I wish there was a magic ruler that I could use for all my lessons to tell me in advance if it measures up. I know that some lessons have to be taught because they are required, and I may try to enhance it a little to make it more interesting. Of course, I may think it is interesting, but my students don’t. Then other times, they find the subject fascinating and I’m surprised.

I think the problem with trying to figure out the magic recipe for the perfect lesson is that every day is different. Students can be affected by the weather, their peers, their family, their health (whether they don’t feel well or have seasonal allergies), or even a chance encounter in the hallway with someone they don’t know. There might be something they saw or heard that puts them in a good or bad mood. The same goes for me. How I feel that day may affect how I teach the lesson.

I know that when I plan a lesson, I need to find ways that will help the student become engaged even when they don’t feel like it. I might be lucky, and it might work. Then sometimes it might not work but I will know that I did my best. Sometimes I try to find things that I think will help the students connect but I’m not sure if it will work. I love the feeling when I try it and it goes well. I always know when I planned a mediocre lesson and I know when I put enough effort into a lesson. But when I put a lot of effort and it doesn’t go over well, I feel disappointed.

I think it is important to reflect on a lesson when it is over. I like to think of the parts that went well and try to figure out why it went well. If it didn’t go well, I want to try to figure out why it didn’t. Hopefully I can use this information to help my next lesson be even better. But I have to remember that if it doesn’t, it isn’t always about me and not let it get me down. It becomes a problem when my lessons aren’t going over well on a consistent basis. Then I need to rethink that it might be my fault and not the students.

When the lesson really feels like it went perfect, I wonder if it went well because the kids were engaged or were the kids engaged because the lesson went well.

Did you have a perfect lesson? How did you know? Please share.

Photo by Jonathan Hoxmark on Unsplash

Transforming Work

In From Implementing to Transforming from @DavidGeurin Blog, David asks,

“Are you stuck in an implementing rut? Or are you using your full creativity and imagination in your work? Are you reaching hearts and minds with transforming work?”

I remember being in school and having to memorize facts. When I was younger, it was the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables. As I got older, I had to memorize historical people, dates, and places. But very rarely was I asked to create something new. In order to make something new, I had to move beyond memorization and actually apply the knowledge that I learned.

Too many times, I have found myself doing the same thing. I was busy implementing a rut. I was taught to use directed reading instruction and the teacher manual actually gave the script for you to use and read. I didn’t even have to transform my instruction because everything was written out for me. It was easy and effortless because I didn’t even have to think. I felt like a trained monkey!

I have found though that if I move away from the implementation of a lesson and transform it into something else, the lesson is usually more successful. Instead of asking my students to regurgitate the information I’ve given them and allow them to transform their work into something meaningful to them, they usually learn more effectively.

So not only do I have to be more creative with my lessons, but I need to allow my students to be creative with their learning. I have to remind myself that the goal is not to just what the students learn but also how they learn and how they can better retain the skills they learn.

When I have fun teaching a lesson, usually the students respond better, and they tend to be more engaged in the lesson. When they are more engaged, they have a vested interest in learning the information. The more engaged the students are, the more I want to be creative and make the lesson better. The better the lesson, the more successful the students are. It is an endless cycle.

Do you implement or transform your lessons? Please share.

Photo by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

Make It Meaningful

In F.A.I.L.W. from Dangerously Irrelevant, Scott McLeod states,

“But maybe the reason our students are ‘failing’ is because they rightfully see that so much of the work that we ask them to do is pretty meaningless and so they simply try to opt out.”

I feel this is vital to any successful lesson! If you can’t make the students believe there is a really good reason for learning the lesson, they will not give their best effort. Students are smarter than we give them credit for and when they feel that all they are doing is wasting their time, they will tune a teacher out. Many times, people will assume they are having trouble with the lesson or they don’t understand the concepts, but they may only be choosing not to put effort into the lesson.

When I look back at my years of schooling, I remember many lessons that I have never used. I also try to remember lessons that I wish I had paid more attention to and how relevant they are to my life.

When I was going through the national certification process, I had to really look at my lessons and give rationales for why I was teaching the lesson and why I was using the strategies in the lesson. This really changed the way that I taught. I was making my lessons more meaningful because if I felt my rationale wasn’t strong enough, I knew that my students wouldn’t find it meaningful enough. I had to think about why I was teaching that lesson. Was it because others had influenced me to teach it and I really didn’t need to do it? Was it just busy work and was I just wasting learning time?

I noticed that when I spent the time making sure that the lesson was meaningful to my students, it was easier to plan the lesson. Also, when I explained to my students why this lesson was important, the students were more engaged in the lesson and it usually had a successful outcome.

How do you make sure your lessons are meaningful? Please share.

Photo by Manasvita S on Unsplash