User talk:Kharr050

By: Kelby Harris

Encourageing The students who need encouragement the most are often the least  likely to receive it. Timothy Evans Encouragement is an essential element inside and outside the classroom. In the classroom encouragement should be practice everyday. It is important for every child to feel encouraged even when they don't understand something that is taught. Every teacher should be equipped with the knowledge of knowing how to display encouragement towards his/her students to motivate them. It is very important to survey and interview students about their thoughts, opinions, and feelings about how the teacher is operating the class. This will help the teacher get a better idea of what is effective and what is not. Feedback from your students will help you understand how they are feeling about your class. In college the dean issues out surveys at the end of every semester for each class to fill out. This survey helps to let the college know how effective the professors are and what they need to improve. In intermediate schools, and elementary schools, and high schools this is important as well. I interviewed a sixteen-year-old male student that is currently a sophomore at Great Bridge High School. The interview consisted of five questions on how encouragement is used in the classrooms at his high school. Here are the five questions that were asked and his rebuttals.

1. What does encouragement mean to you? Feeling uplifted when you fail or struggle, something from keeping you from quitting or feeling like a failure. 2. How often do your teachers make you feel encouraged on a scale 1-10 (1 being the lowest and 10 the highest)? Four. 3. What class are you most encouraged in? Why? ''Spanish II because my teacher tells us encouraging things when we stumble over pronunciations of words. For example she says, "Don’t quit you can do, it I know it."'' 4. How do you feel when you are encouraged? It actually motivates me to work harder rather than give up because I don’t understand. 5. Do you think it is important to have your teachers be encouraging to their students?  I think it is very important because, it mentally prepares you to think you can do anything that you put your mind to.

When teachers focus more on the efforts made by their students rather than the improvements that need to be made it is more encouraging to both the teacher and student. It is not only the teacher's job to deliver information to the students but to encourage them even when they are having trouble. A teacher can get frustrated easily with his/her students progress. However, it is very important that the teacher subsitutes the frustration with words of encouragement to keep the student from feeling like a failure. Encouragement in the classroom will build positive energy and thoughts to make the student's preformance better. For example,when I was in fifth grade we had a dedicated time every morning for a session called Positive Action. In this session our class was given positive stories of children being encouraged when they were struggling with their studies or an activity they were trying to do. At the end of every story the student successfully completed the task. Still today this impacts me the same way it did in fifth grade. Positive Action in the morning encouraged my class and helped create a strong confident environment for the rest of the day. There are six important steps that should be given to every teacher to help shape their classrooms with encouragement they are; make relationships a priority, conduct respectful dialogue, practice encouragement, make decisions through classroom meetings, resolve conflicts, and have fun. Those are steps that should be conducted in the classroom, but there are also a variety of steps that should be left out of the classroom such as; setting very high expectations, focusing on mistakes to try to motivate, comparing your students, making pesstimistc interpretations, and being to helpful. These five suggestion of things to keep out of the classroom enviornment will help tremendously. A fine line is drawn between encouragement and praise. Teachers should be able to distinguish the differences between them. Praise stimulates rivalry and competition, fosters selfishness at the expense of others, focuses on quality of performance, and fosters failure. However, encouragement fosters acceptance of being imperfect, encourages student to not give up, fosters self-suffieciency and independence, and stimulates cooperation and contribution. An easy way to distinguish between praise and encouragement is to be able to identify praise comments and encouraging comments. A general praise comment would be "You are the best student I have ever had," or " You had the highest score on this exam in the class" compared to an encouraging comment, " You are a fine student any teacher would appreciate and enjoy you" or" You did very well on this exam." The danger of giving praise to a student after everything he/she accomplishes puts them at a high risk of feeling like a failure if praise isn't rewarded to them in everything. Also, students who are oftened praised don't accomplish things for themselves, but for the satisfaction of others waiting for their rewards of praise. It is critical to make sure you are using the correct phrases when encouraging your students. The two are easily confused when used, but it is critical to use the correct phrases to let your student know that you a proud of their efforts even if they fail. Encouragement can be used in all areas of life. At T.R. Simons Elementary School in Alabama, the lunchroom staff issues an award of the week to the class that uses manners during lunch. Frequently the monitors are encouraging the students to use manners while eating and encourage those who are doing well. Every class eventually receives an award encouraging everybody as a whole. This is an effective way of encouraging students outside the classroom. Students not only feel better about their efforts in accomplishing something, but are more motivated to do it again later.