Tag: positivity

My Teachers

I have always considered myself to be a positive individual especially where students are concerned.    I have always believed that I need to espouse the potential which is inherent in us all.

#29daysofwriting has made me reflect on this a little.   Lately I have been struggling to identify exactly what to write about so I have taken to using the very helpful list of ideas from @mrlockyer including his suggestion with regards writing about my best teacher as a child.

I have a number of teachers that I consider to have been my best during my formal schooling years, each playing some part in shaping my teaching beliefs and style.    One of these being my teacher of Accounting which I studied as part of an accelerated Higher grade course where I had never previously studied Accounting.

One of the sustaining memories of this teacher was the fact that she told me she didn’t think I would be successful in the course.   She, my teacher, told me I didn’t have the potential.    This is very much contradictory to my beliefs regarding the need for teachers to be positive however until now I have never really reflected on this.

By telling me I couldn’t this teachers spurred me on to prove that she was wrong.   My previous years results had been a little disappointing and had led to me continuing into my 6th year in high school as opposed to going to University at the end of 5th year.    As such I was a little despondent at the time.    Her message was a little bit of a kick up the backside which looking back may have been exactly what I needed at the time.

In terms of her teaching, she worked me hard so her comment was not the first sign of her giving up on me.   At the end of the year I achieved an A grade which I was proud of, proving her to be wrong.

I suspect she made her decision to tell me about my lack of potential based on her initial impressions of me, possibly some discussions in the staff room along with a variety of other data and factors.  I suspect she didn’t do this lightly.   I also suspect she believe this was the message I needed to hear to ensure I achieved my potential as she saw it, a potential she never identified to me.

I still believe positivity is very, very important in teachers of our students however I also believe we need to treat every student as an individual and in doing so maybe a positive, one size fits all approach, may not always be appropriate.    That said I am not sure I would have the confidence to use such a reverse psychology driven approach.

 

Obstacles and Learned Behaviour

I was in the process of planning a training session within which I planned to use Stephen coveys circles of concern and influence.   I was considering Coveys comments regarding the fact that as we work more in our circle of influence we grow the circle.    This growth is the result of others seeing our ability to bring about change and to have an impact.   We also build up trust in ourselves that we can succeed and have an impact.   So the impact is two fold changing the perception of other towards us and also changing our own self perception. I found myself considering if this self fulfilling prophecy might be applicable beyond Coveys circles and into the domain of overcoming obstacles.    Where we freeze or shy away from obstacles we may be seen by others as ineffectual.    We ourselves will also start to believe that we are incapable of overcoming the prevalent obstacles in our lives.  It is a negative self fulfilling prophecy.   It may also be considered as learned behaviour as each experience of being unable to overcome an obstacle reinforces the belief that we can’t overcome obstacles. Looking at the other side of things, if we see an obstacle as an opportunity and proceed to overcome it then we show others that we can succeed.  We also build our self confidence in our ability to overcome obstacles.   When the next obstacle makes it appearance we will be more likely to challenge it and to view it as an opportunity.   Again we have a self fulfilling prophecy and learned behaviour however here we have significantly better chances of a positive outcome. Now both the positive and the negative examples above show evidence of learned behaviour.    Such behaviour is often enacted with little conscious thought.  The challenge therefore is for us as individuals to remain aware of what we are doing and why and to rethinking those situations where the behaviour is negative in nature and to encourage those behaviours which are positive. It’s now been a few days since I started seeing the obstacle of being tired and having to get out of bed as an opportunity rather than an obstacle.   Each day I get up and out of bed rather than hitting snooze, the easier it is to repeat the task the following day.  Yesterday the extra time and motivation I gained from succeeding in getting up despite being tired resulted in very significant improvements in productivity.   So next time you hit snooze and roll over in bed give some thoughts to this fact as I promise the impact on your day is bigger than just the loss of 10 or 15 minutes from the available time in the day. As Ryan Holiday puts it in the title to his book, “The Obstacle is the way”.