Being a student is challenging, and struggling with learning can sometimes be a part of that. So how can a teacher turn this conflict into a constructive device for driving authentic learning forward?
It can be a challenge to get students to think positively about learning. As teachers, though, you're in a unique position to guide your learners through more than just the day's learning. In fact, you're helping them learn to foster and maintain life skills for long-term success. Additionally, you're teaching them that functional failure is a real thing.
Ultimately, the whole idea of teaching is to teach your students not to need you anymore. Once they leave you, they should go forth knowing they can succeed and thrive by themselves using what you've taught them.
To do this, we must ensure they are lifelong learners. That means we must get students thinking positively about learning, failing, and trying again.
Positive Thinking: You Only Think You're Doing It Wrong
When Norman Vincent Peale published The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, it divided readers on the credibility of the New Thought movement. While some firmly believed in the doctrines it proposed, others remained sceptical.
What does it mean to think positively? Perhaps a better question might be what doesn't it mean? Arguably the most pervasive misconception about positive thinking is that it ignores what is happening at the moment.
Ultimately, the whole idea of teaching is to teach your students not to need you anymore.
This is a fallacy because true positive thinking is about thinking on purpose, not living in denial. It's a practice that allows us to accept and live with turbulent emotions and mental states while keeping a firm focus on our end goal.
Positive thought lets us overcome mental and emotional barriers and gives us a tool to manage them. It doesn't mean ignoring them and pretending they're not there. Quite the opposite; it encourages us to embrace the imperfect and the uncontrollable in our lives and ask ourselves, "How can I find the lesson in this?"
Looking for positives is how we want our learners to embrace their education, including all the hills and valleys that come with it. And it all comes down to a power every person on Earth has: choice.
The Power of Choice
Being positive about learning also means ensuring students understand that they are the only ones who think in their minds. It sounds obvious, but weigh this for a moment. How often do we believe the thoughts we think are the fault of the words and actions of others?
In any crisis, especially during learning, we can choose how we react. All of us have the incredible power to decide how we think, especially our young learners.
True positive thinking is about thinking on purpose, not living in denial.
Our thoughts and feelings shape our journeys, and these are all our own personal choices to make. What we choose shapes our lives, and that is our inner power. It can serve us or hurt us, but the options remain ours.
What happens to your students' thought patterns in a time of difficulty with learning? Do they panic and seek help, or does their resolve strengthen? Do they shut down, or do they strive to find a way to solve the problem?
Because learning is organic, it's messy and feels uncomfortable. That's how you know you are learning something because you feel stretched and unsure. It's in those times you can help students develop tools for positive mindset maintenance. But how?
Teachers should openly model being a learner and an inquirer, not knowing the answers and even making mistakes. In that kind of environment, learning becomes a positive experience.
But What If I'm Wrong?
Let's begin with what stops our kids from engaging in fearless, messy learning. What keeps their inherent brilliance hidden in the darkness? Ultimately, one of the most prominent barricades has to do with appearances.
Some kids fear making mistakes in front of their peers when they struggle with learning. As a result, they tend to stay quiet and reserved, even when they know the answer. It's that immobilizing "what if I'm wrong" mental block that prevents their progress.
You can encourage learners to think critically about their mindset by having them reflect on questions like these:
- What is it you fear most about being wrong? Are they afraid of looking dumb or slow in front of others? Do they feel the need to keep up with faster learners? Are they fearful of harsh consequences from the teacher? If they can shed light on the real reasons behind why they fear mistakes, it will provide a springboard for both the learner and the teacher to work together in moving forward constructively.
- Has anyone ever actually called you stupid for being wrong? It can be painful to recall such an event, but it's essential for a few reasons. First, it provides insight into the reason behind a learner's mental state of apprehension. Second, it lets you as a teacher come to the student from a place of compassion as you provide instruction in a non-judgemental environment.
- Do you know anyone who doesn't make mistakes? It's doubtful because we all make mistakes. Kids do it, adults do it, and the supposedly most competent people in the world do it. No one is immune to making errors, and learners must realise that this is normal and beneficial to human development.
- How can you turn a mistake into a positive learning experience? Useful failure allows us to turn our mistakes into real-life learning experiences. Now that they know mistakes are necessary for learning, what happens next time they fail?
The Best Ways to Make Learning Positive
Our modern classrooms should be spaces where collaboration and support are the mainstays of healthy learning. We must decide now that however we felt about learning in the past is old news. The time to make our learners' educational adventures positive and uplifting is right here and right now. To achieve this, teachers and students must work together.
So what are everyone's respective roles in making learning positive? Let's break it down below.
The Teacher's Role
- Facilitator: Our learning belongs to students, and it's up to them to make it happen. What we do as teachers is present the teaching in ways that engage them and let them do the rest. We remain on hand as facilitators, constantly challenging them and connecting to their interests and abilities to bring out the best in each individual.
- Model of Inquiry: Curiosity precedes learning, and teachers should model curiosity and inquiry. Methodologies like inquiry-based learning naturally facilitate open discussion between students and their instructors. Experiences are shared rather than just passively given and received. The result is an active learning environment where everyone is encouraged to ask questions and remain inquisitive.
- Fellow Learner: The journey of learning never stops, even when you're a teacher. That's what it means to be a lifelong learner. Modelling this enthusiasm for your students shows them you're ready to get messy with learning right alongside them.
- Fellow Human Being: Go ahead and mess up in front of your students. Get comfortable saying, "I don't know, let's figure it out". Let them see you make mistakes and then demonstrate how to learn from them, which is the most vital part of the formula for positive learning.
The Learner's Role
- Learning Leader: In the most successful inquiry learning and personalised learning ventures, the learners take point after instruction is given. Above all, it is the students who are responsible for learning. They have ownership of it and can take pride in that.
- Peer Supporter: In a modern learning environment, personalised approaches take the lead as every learner is different and learns at their own pace. One of the most important things learners can do for each other to make learning positive is to build a culture of mutual support around the learning.
- Seeker of Opportunity: Positive learning experiences, as we said before, rely on the act of seeing possibility and opportunity within any mistakes. In a supportive learning space free from judgement, learners must feel secure in the knowledge that if they make a mistake, they are free to see its value as a learning opportunity.
- Dreamer and Builder: Dreaming encourages learners to imagine solutions and possibilities free from any limitations. Creation, or building something new, is at the high end of Bloom's Taxonomy.
If You Build It, They Will Learn
Fostering positive classroom environments is the most valuable thing we can do for our students as educators. Besides providing relevant connections to learning and mindful assessment practices, this matters perhaps more than anything.
A safe and positive classroom is guaranteed to be a productive one. Fostering positive classroom environments also lays the foundation for students to build healthy, beneficial relationships. Finally, working in a positive learning space benefits students and teachers both mentally and physically.
As a result, everyone is happy and healthy, and everyone is prepared for truly authentic learning all year round.
Student positivity and well-being are one the 6 Aspects of a Culture of Excellence in schools. How many of these Aspects of Excellence do you think might be part of your school culture? Download this FREE guide to discover what they're all about and how you can begin to integrate them into your practice.
