CHALLENGE (3)
Going for higher challenge!
We see that boys love challenge. To help them take up large challenges requires conscious motivated engagement and discretionary effort; These two impressive sounding words have simple but important roles when it comes to getting your boys to take up a challenge. Motivated Engagement means he is involved through his motivation, not yours! And it drives him to succeed. To get success, however, he will have to use Discretionary effort, meaning he will have to put in extra effort beyond what he has to do. He will go the extra mile to meet the challenge.
When it is conscious, a decision has been made, but the reality that you must understand as a teacher is the decision to be passionately engaged in something and put in the extra effort into it without being nagged is a decision that can only be made by a boy himself. Yet it is these decisions that are crucial steps on his pathway to become a successful, passionate and independent learner in school and life. Now this might seem frustrating to you. What do you do, if you can’t make him take up school learning challenges? You actually have an irreplaceable role in helping him here. But it is as a coach and mentor and not as taskmaster. The key is to use his natural craving for challenge for your curriculum.
TO TRY THIS WEEK…
You have hopefully tried the informal and formal challenges and are familiar with the Challenge sheet. Now try the following:
- Take some time and ask the students in your class to think of a “Great” Challenge” each students could set for his/her self related to anything you teach them
- This challenge would be longer than for a class, but perhaps for a week.
- Use the challenge sheet to have them record it and, if there’s time allow students to share what their challenge is and encourage each other. If possible find a public place to display all of the class challenge sheets–or even make a list of their goals and share them.
- Try it and let us know how it works for leveraging the motivated engagement and discretionary effort described above…
