Wednesday morning turned out to be gray and rainy. That’s why, while drinking my morning cup of tea I was thinking about communication – how do we communicate and how do students communicate with us.
No, no – I am not trying to give the best solution ever or a general recipe for every single situation. I am just speaking about one small part of it.
Let’s have a look at one example: Let us imagine that you are an employee in a private company and your task is to make a deal with a client. And it might happen that for some reasons you are unable to do it. And it might even happen that you decide to go to your boss and complain. At that point you have a choice: you could either say: “I can’t do it, it is too much, I have that and this and that…”. You might even be polite and not scream but the message would still be the same – you can’t do it. Or you could go to your boss and say something like: “In order to sign the contract with the client, I need …. (someone to take care of the other clients, more money, more persons helping, the colleagues to complete their parts or …).
And although the situation has not changed, I bet your boss would appreciate the second approach. There are many reasons for that, but the obvious one is: You have done the work. You have made the effort to come up with an idea how to make things happen.
How does that compare to school? Which approach from your students do you prefer? Students rising their hand (or coming to see you in your free time) and saying in an angry voice: “I don’t get it,” or those saying: “Could you please explain that and that thing again”.
And I as a teacher don’t mind explaining things 3, 4 and 5 times if necessary, but whenever I hear – “I don’t get it. All of it.” it makes me realize that student is not even making the effort to understand which parts they don’t understand. And then I am doing this part of the work for them, but “The one who does the work, is the one who learns”.
Kind of easy and simple in general, but would make such a difference.