not to oversimplify an extremely complex discipline but if i had to pick one tip to give people on how to have more productive interactions with children, especially in an instructive sense, its that teaching a kid well is a lot more like improv than it is like error correction and you should always work on minimizing the amount of ‘no, wrong’ and maximizing the amount of ‘yes, and?’ for example: we have a species of fish at the aquarium that looks a lot like a tiny pufferfish. children are constantly either asking us if that’s what they are, or confidently telling us that’s what they are. if you rush to correct them, you risk completely severing their interest in the situation, because 1. kids don’t like to engage with adults who make them feel bad and 2. they were excited because pufferfish are interesting, and you have not given them any reason to be invested in non-pufferfish. Instead, if you say something like “It looks a LOT like a tiny pufferfish, you’re right. But these guys are even funnier. Wanna know what they’re called?” you have primed them perfectly for the delightful truth of the Pacific Spiny Lumpsucker
I was in martial arts for years, and in particular I kinda specialized in working with the younger kids.
The two Big Rules when instructing younger students was- 1. Compliment before Critique 2. Don’t say ‘but’, say ‘now’
Praise kids on what they get right first, especially if they are struggling. Like OP said, kids don’t like to engage with people who make them feel bad. They need encouragement when learning new things.
Number two boils down to this. If you tell a kid a compliment, then say “but you need to fix this”, that ‘but’ completely negates your compliment. It’s gone. It was canceled out like adding a negative to a positive. Using “hey, that punch is looking great, now let’s focus on your stance” doesn’t verbally cancel out the progress they’ve made. It’s like they’ve checked off something on their list of stuff to work on.
Wording can absolutely make or break a child’s motivation and interest.
Rebloggling as it’s relevant in a Medical Education context
Honestly I use all of these to teach vet students too. I think people in general respond better to positivity in teaching. Not coddling, but acknowledging when a student got part way to the right answer, or had a good thought process, is something I’ve found keeps students engaged and builds confidence, which encourages them to keep going instead of shutting down and just “getting through” a lab or a rotation
Advise we use at my work (teaching mostly younger kids with a hard time reading) is Specific Positive Support. If they read the word “brisk” as “bricks” you go “ yeah, you got that first blend, nice job, those can be tricky!” before getting into what they struggled with. Just saying ’ good work’ or ‘nice job’ starts to feel like a platitude and precursor to ‘here is everything wrong’ if it’s not paired with proof that the kiddo /actually did do a good job on a thing/. Kids aren’t stupid, they can tell when you’re Just Saying Something Nice to head off a shutdown. But praising the specific things they did well, or got right, even if it’s just “ dude, you said that so fast!” or “Thanks for matching my question, good job listening.” is a game changer.
wmata you may want to rethink your phrasing
Two vastly different experiences
@eastgermanhattrick booyeah
Brief moment of horror at work bc I forgot what I named my phone for a sec
Going to a seder at a family friend's place tonight and I have been informed multiple times that someone there has changed her name to Stephanie, but because it seems nobody wants to deadname her, nobody has specified who Stephanie is. So I guess I'm just going to get a surprise Stephanie when I arrive.
I am among the first people to arrive which means I get to play a fun process of elimination game. It is not the family's youngest child so I think that leaves two more. Unless Stephanie is an aunt or a niece or something.
Have learned that Stephanie is the eldest child. Which is very convenient for me because she is the one family member whose name I could not remember anyway.
Shout out to Stephanie's friend who read this post and called me out on it during the seder.
fantasy creatures are literally real and they can see the posts you make about them so next time think before making "puts you in a jar with a leaf" or "pulls on your wings as always" because we can see this kind of shit and they remember.
*they
puts you in a jar without a leaf. what now.
what is your problem
girl help I'm having fic ideas incompatible with the amount of free time I currently have
does ANYONE have the post where it’s like “You know you’re having a good phone call when you start walking around the room” and there’s like 4 pics of a guy standing on a washing machine and sitting upside down you know what I’m talking about
thank you I love you
so ummm welcome to my jar:) lemme show you around! theres some holes poked in the top so i can breathe, theres some leaves to munch on, and ive even got a twig! #mytwig
a society that allows people to starve when there is food has failed. like. that’s it.
People arguing with this saying, “why do people deserve food for free???” is honestly just further proof of the failure.