You cannot force respect

"How do I get young people to respect me?"

That is a question that many of my teaching peers ask me. And they are often surprised by my answer.

"You cannot force people to respect you," I would often reply. Up till today, I have no idea why this statement is so controversial.

The reality is that, while we can force people to act as if they are respectful, actual respect is a choice. In other words, if we live a life that is edifying and admirable, it would be natural for students to respect us.

Youths seek a sense of purpose and hence a model to look up too. As teachers, we have a responsibility to be their role model.

Why students fall

One of the biggest fears I have is when students have self-harm thoughts. According to Dr Jordan Peterson (a clinical psychologist), it often happens when students

1) lack purpose (and therefore lack routines);

2) lack relationships (such as friends); and 

3) have health/addiction problems.

These factors may be related to each other.

How does this affect my teaching?

This means that students who suffer from school refusal are at-risk of self-harm. As educators, we should take note of students who lack routines, friends and have health problems.

For more information:

Do not do this cool thing

Often when giving instructions to students, we are frustrated when they don't listen to us.

One of the reasons is that we teachers do not explain the rationale of our instructions and portray misbehaviour as "cool". Let's look at the following:

"Bring the scissors to me. Don't stab yourself."

"Climb down the ladder rung by rung. Don't jump off."

"Stay on the escaltor, Don't slide down the handles."

"Stay healthy. Don't smoke like those losers in the poster above."

In each instruction, the teacher is giving a "cool" idea to the student, without explaining the danger of the misbehaviour.

Let's remember to keep explaining to our students.

What we can learn from Life is Strange

Recently I completed the game, Life is Strange. It is one of the most empathetic and emotional stories ever experienced.

Taking the role of teenager Max, you have to come to terms with your time-travelling powers to reconnect with your long-lost friend Chloe. In a consequence-free environment (you can reverse time if you dislike an outcome), Max will mature from an unsure, demure girl to a confident, heroic teenager by the end of the game.

What I enjoyed was that it lectures adults (like myself) on the struggles of being a teenager. Often I (as a teacher) will dismiss teenage complaints as simple angst, instead of addressing the major issues bubbling underneath. For instance, a school bully acts aggressively towards everyone is just regarded as being a simple jerk. Through much probing, you find out that the bully has a dysfunctional family.

Episode 1 of Life is Strange is free on Steam. If you like the pilot, you should purchase the other 4 episodes.

Use of magic in lessons

Magic

Recently, I have been using card tricks as a primer for our lessons. I have covered evolutionary theory, birthday paradox and even memory techniques using cards.

In this post I will examine the advantages of using magic tricks in class.

Magic as science undiscovered

When students observe magic, they are interested as what they see seemingly what they understand from the natural world. This gives us opportunities to explain how we use science to masquerade as a trick.

Magic as character building
Furthermore, some magic works by illusion and distractions, which allow us to explain the importance confidence and discernment.

Conclusion
Why not learn a few magic tricks to supplement your lessons?

Formative vs Summative Assessment

What is the difference?

If you are anything like me, every time my colleague or superior mentions "formative assessment", a fear runs down my spine. At times I confused it with summative assessment. In this post, I aim to quickly and loosely define them.

Formative assessment

Formative assessment is aimed towards providing quality feedback, gudiance and comments for the teacher or student. This information is then used to improve the teaching and learning.

One example of formative assessment is a simple periodic questioning of students during a lesson is a way for the teacher to check if the teaching of a concept was effective.

Summative assessment

Summative assessment is like a final judgement or grading of work. Examples would be the O Levels or N Levels.

Conclusion

While summative assessments are inevitable as part of national examinations, we as teachers should also seek to add formative assessments to our framework.

In fact the two are not mutually exclusive -- we can use our common test as a way to inform students of their current abilities by adjusting our lessons to suit their deficiencies.

Review yourself

Dear friends,

I am currently an assigned mentor to one of the practicum teachers. For most of her lessons, I made her write a reflection. This is because the most consistent assessor of her teaching will not be me, the principal or even the students. Other than God, the most important assessor is herself.

In this way, I hope she will be self-reflective and able to correct herself after every lesson.