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A vision of success? Teaching teenagers!
By Ian Mcculloch
Many teenagers nowadays do not really know why they are at school! They go to the school, mostly every weekday, but they do not really appreciate the reason they are there. Most think it is to meet their friends, to socialise. Catch up with what happened the previous evening, who's doing what to whom. All these things seem more important to most children in high school than actually going to school to learn a skill or just learn some new fact. How do I know this? Well I am a teacher in a high school and see it everyday. Now I know there are going to be adults reading this and thinking this is a really negative outlook for a teacher to have, but read on. The beginning statements are true. Sure there are still a few dedicated youngsters that do exactly as they are told by their parents and teachers and listen to every word spoken to them, but their numbers are dwindling every year that
goes by. Why? The main reason I believe is that teenagers lack a vision of success. They do not see the point of learning at
school. They want to talk to their mates, not listen to their teacher! If they do have a vision of success, its one of being famous as a singer or some kind of celebrity. How they are going to become this famous person is a little more vague! So teachers really are up against it - as they say. Successful teachers are able to get around this negative outlook and feelings of pointlessness from teenagers. They
mix the lesson up to incorporate the necessary learning with real life topics that the teenagers talk about. They
do this to motivate them. Soon the teenagers begin to look forward to coming to class and listen more to the
teacher. rather than talk to their pals in class. A teacher has to give them a vision of success. By doing this they banish negative thoughts and help the youngsters to imagine being successful. To give the teenagers a taste of success the teacher has to give them a task. The aim of the task is to give the
young person confidence. It should inspire a sense of pride in them that they can succeed. It should be followed up with the teacher giving approving comments like - well done! I knew you could do it! This will make the teenager
feel good about themselves and want more of the same. Once you give the young person a feeling of being able to tackle a task confidently, with a sense of pride they
will be more ready to tackle more difficult problems. Also in the lesson there has to be humour. Laughter helps get
any task done. However, this has to be in a positive way. Too many teachers over step the mark and turn the laughter onto one young person. This of course will alienate that teenagers. So all humour must be seen by everyone
as just good positive banter! Another factor to use is inspirational people. Mention some of the teenagers heros. People in life that are
successful. Athletes, Pop Stars, Business people and well known celebrities. Do some research on these people and
mention in your lesson how the vast majority of these successful people had to work hard to become well known. How they had a vision of success and worked at it. Most will have taken years to become a success. Very few would be over night successes. In fact do not mention these over night wonders! To sum up, face up to the facts that you will have to work hard to motivate the vast majority of teenagers that
come to your class. You have to find a way to get them motivated and have a vision of success. Once you give them
confidence by seeing success tackling a task, use this method to inspire even more positive thoughts. Use
successful people as examples for them to achieve success. Mix in some humour and an overall good feeling in the
classroom and you will not be far from achieving real success with teenagers in school. |
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It starts at home, I am the blended mother of five adults and one teen (high school senior, this Fall). Parents need to shift gears from pal to coach. First child learns how to take care of personals, clean personal space and his/her first job happens when they start school. Their job is to accomplish required tasks to meet requirements for the next level of school. This is a life-long process; when they graduate from high school, the tasks are the same; however, the job changes from pre-k to senior, to college/tech school or first employment. They continue to be responsible to "meet requirements for the next level" ~ graduation, promotion, financial stability. My two adults and my spouse's three adults is carrying on the daily quotes: "Listen to your instructor and do what (s)he says" ~ "If you have a problem talk to me" ~~ the latter works both for our children talking to me or their daddy as well as their children talking to them. My guru brother often reminds: "Everyday your child leaves home (s)he returns as a different person" ~ this is due to their environment outside of the home. This is why it is important for parents to talk to their children daily so the comfort zone of communicating gets established and firms bonding that stay stronger parents more than with peers.
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