THE BEST WAY TO TEACH IS TO PRAISE POSITIVE ACTIONS AND IGNORE NEGATIVE ONES

Teaching often requires much more than simply imparting facts from textbooks. Apart from providing knowledge, teaching incorporates the task of moulding students to be mature, competent, cultured, and considerate human beings. The onus is therefore on the teachers, to adopt the method that serves these purposes. The process of creating a mature and just human out of a child, is ladden with high percentages of risky overtures whose consequences might be quite counter-intuitive. Teachers are often torn between the dilemma whether they should punish children or should they ignore every offense, to discipline a child. It is difficult for educators to gauge which could bring the best in the child. Just like punishing a child can be detrimental, praising a child too often can also have adverse effects. One cannot be in concordance with the statement entirely as it promotes only one of the two presumed possible ways to teach. It is mostly a blanket statement that does not appear to be viable for application, because of the reasons dilated below.

To begin with, praising a well-mannered, studious, helpful and disciplened child would of course provide an incentive for him to continue with his good work. This will also be an example for others to emulate, so that they too might be praised. However, lauding the positive acions thinking it would elicit only good actions or behavior, may not be effective in all practical situations. For instance, a child who has been praised over and over for his good classroom etiquette, or his excellent academic performance might eventually be so used to praises and attention that she grows up unable to handle any criticism for her works in future. She might not learn to accept failures or negative opinions gracefully, because she was never exposed to such situations as she grew up. On the other hand, praising and applauding the children who behave well might be frowned upon by the ones who are not. The students who never get the teacher’s attention or any kind of approval might grow up to be distanced from the ones who do get it. They might feel their teachers are prejudiced towards a select few and this creates a hostile atmosphere wherein the so called ‘good’ students become the targets to be bullied by these other students.

Just like praising cannot be the best way to teach, completely ignoring the negative actions may not keep the naughtier students at bay. For one thing, there are several forms of ‘negative actions’. It is a negative action when a child talks during a class, or beats a fellow student, or cheats in a test, or does not follow the teacher’s instructions in class. If all these are ignored, the student would simply carry on with the behavior until it becomes a habit as when he grows up. Sometimes, not punishing a child makes the bad work look acceptable and it actually encourages the behavior. Ignoring to punish a child when he beats a classmate or when yells about in the class, would make him feel his actions are acceptable. This would also arouse the others in his class to follow suit, because they would all feel such acts are fun and safe. If the child was punished right at the beginning, the rest would have never been encouraged. Again, if plagiarism in the classrooms is not dealt with stern actions against the perpetrators, the latter would never realize how egregious and corrupt the action is. They will be encouraged to rely on such acts for all their tests until they are unable to study at all. These students would go on to become adults without any scruples or principles. They would resort to underhanded means to achieve their future goals.

Of course not all negative actions deserve punishment. A simple act of disobedience might not be very harmful and can be ignored. For instance, a student who looks out the window during a lesson to see a friend from a different class passing by, should not be regarded as an offense. Furthermore, if a child is constantly unattentive in class, he or she might be suffering from some attentional problem that requires help to be overcome. Likewise, there might be certain actions, which the teacher should not conclude as disrespectful and resort to punishing the child. In such situations, the teacher might be required to interact with the child and try to know the reason behind the act. If the child needs help, the teacher should take the necessary measure to do the needful. Hence, teachers might actually have to face with a lot of different situations that require them to adopt approriate methods so that the student is dealt with in the manner that is best for them.

In essence, teaching a child to be well-mannered entails much more than praising positive actions or ignoring negative ones. Neither of the two are feasible for application in all types of situations. There is no one definitive formula to create well-behaved students. Teachers need to adopt different strategies for different actions to elicit the best in their students. While too much praising can be detrimental for a child, ignoring all negative actions can have serious effects as well. The teachers are required to discern the reasons behind the negative actions of a child to understand their problems and then deal with them appropriately. As far as the praising positive actions is concerned, teachers must try to moderate it such that it obviates the probable counteractive actions. The gist is that the teachers should limit praising, as well as ignoring, to be effective educators. Not all positive actions need plaudits every time and not all negative actions should be ignored. Hence, teachers should implement both of these along with other effective strategies, at appropriate situations, in order to make a child a fully competent and principled human being.