Every day in every way ...

Hey! I told you no tongues

My mother, rest her soul, encouraged me to repeat to myself daily "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better". In today's PTLLS lesson, I learned what that phrase really means. It is a manifestation of psychologist Martin Seligman's teachings on optimism. Seligman's research showed that optimists are successful. We were informed that optimism is learned behaviour and that if we can encourage optimism in our students it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I thought today's image was distinctly appropriate. Today is of course Valentine's Day. It also seems appropriate if we consider that the male green parakeet is the eternal optimist.

We also discussed diversity and equality by enumerating words that might represent barriers to our students. Our group considered such barriers as age, race, language, sexuality, disability (physical and mental), beliefs, financial, background (social), prior education, health and peer pressure. Maslow's hierarchy of needs cropped up again, this time as a barrier to learning. For example, hunger prevents learning.

Marva Collins, as a successful and inspirational teacher of the under-privileged, was briefly examined. An overtly optimistic educator, Marva believes that "there is a brilliant child locked inside every student". Derek Paravicini was mentioned to illustrate the point that intelligence is not just measured by IQ tests. He is a severely disabled autistic savant who is an exceedingly gifted musician .

All in all a very interesting lesson.

Update: It appears that the auto-suggestive mantra "Every day, in every way, ..." was invented by Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie not my mother. It is now known as a Couéism. I so wanted to believe it was my mother.

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better

Not just another brick in the wall?

Another Brick in the Wall!

The students that we teach are all different, unlike the school children referred to in Pink Floyd's rock opera, The Wall "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II". Examine this image carefully. There is one whole brick and parts of four other bricks shown. Even though we cannot see five full bricks, we can see that every brick is different. If we could look at this wall from a distance, we would think that every brick was the same.

We can view our students in the same way. Stand back from them and we can believe that they are all the same; after all, they have joined our course! Look more closely however and we spot many differences. Each student learns in a different way—see the VARK learning preferences questionnaire. Each student has different motives for completing the course—such as a requirement for their job or simply a wish to better themselves. Each student will have barriers to learning - such as financial, work pressures or home circumstances. Barriers may change over the course. A student may be ill or feel under pressure as the course progresses. Being sensitive to these differences, within organisational resource constraints, may help us provide a learning environment helpful for all of our students.

We should also consider diversity, but that is for another lesson.