Empower
Yesterday, I nearly missed an opportunity to motivate a student. Not with harsh words, but with a positive statement I almost made. What? A positive statement? Compliments are bad? No, but depending on our goals, we can make subtle language changes with children.
Before speaking, I remembered my weekend work with a colleague, revisiting a teacher book called Choice Words.
Instead of the specific compliment I was about to make, I asked my student, “What are you especially proud of that you did today?”
“That,” he pointed to poem called Cake Armstrong that he wrote and illustrated as a mixed media collage on canvas. “Can I take it home?”
“Sure!” I said.
I had no idea he cared that deeply about that particular project. One of the first writing and drawing projects of the year, he’d taken personal risks to find self-expression through poetry. He said he’d never written a poem and that he thought poetry had to rhyme. Drawing the trumpet took more than one try…and even reading the book about Louis Armstrong that inspired the piece took courage.
My intended compliment related to his math work. If I’d given him the math praise before asking what he thought, I would have missed an opportunity to draw on his own motivation. It’s not that we shouldn’t give compliments, but we can empower our children to evaluate their progress and set goals through the way we choose our words.
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What’s the Deal?: In working with children, many words hold hidden implications. For example, if I, as an adult authority, frequently proclaim what I think a child has done best, I run the risk of creating patterns of a child who seeks to please, instead of instilling a sense of self-reliance and allowing the child to practice self-evaluation and self-motivation.
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Resources: Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Children’s Learning by Peter H. Johnston. Poem and artwork inspired by the chapter book biography for grades 3 – 6, Play, Louis, Play: The True Story of a Boy and his Horn by Muriel Harris Weinstein, a Texas Bluebonnet Award book.
Artwork and Poetry Detail in photo copyright 2012 by J.C.T., age nine. All rights reserved. Used with permission of the artist.
Text copyright 2012 by Kristi Beall-Zumpano. All rights reserved.
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