Attention
Escape
Sensory
Tangible
At least that's what I can remember.
Guess which one I think is most important in teaching. Oh. Guess you read the post title.
So, you're in a classroom, trying to teach, and you have a kid who is clowning around and interrupting your important speech on the Bb mixolydian scale. So you go:
Hey kid! stop that!
and the kid says.
Stop What?
And you say TALKING!
and the kid says
I wasn't talking!
And you say I'M NOT ARGUING WITH YOU!
And the kid says
I wasn't talking!
And you say YES YOU WERE! in kind of an argumentative manner.
Where did we go wrong? It's all about attention. Let's re-examine:
Kids talking and interrupting your teaching. Did you ask yourself how bad it was before you called him out in front of the class? Was he distracting everyone? half the kids? a few kids? Just you?
Why is this question pertinent? Well, where was the classes attention before you called him out? Was it on him or you? Let's say that out of 28 kids, one kid was paying attention to the miscreant, while the other 26 were listening to EL Teacher-O.
You call him out in front of everyone and now the little scamp has the attention of 27 people plus the teacher.
So, you just rewarded this kid by multiplying the amount of attention he is receiving by a factor of 28. You also just made a point to the rest of your pupils that this lovely little tyke is 28 times as important as your lesson.
Since this blog is for myself, I'll just end by saying that this is information worth studying.
