intelligence Tag

Posts tagged 'intelligence'

Use Your Self-fulfilling Prophecy to Help Your Kids Succeed

What does “self-fulfilling prophecy” have to do with good education and helping your kids succeed? Everything!

To raise our children to be successful, happy, healthy and productive grownups, we need a holistic approach. Yet our society and education system take a different approach. Governments spend billions of dollars every year to establish and run educational institutes where kids learn literacy and numeracy. Children dedicate 13 to 15 years of their life to learning things that will play a small part of their adult life.

Do not get me wrong, I think it is important to learn to read. I am also a qualified math teacher and think math is important. But tell me, out of a week of your life, with 24 hours a day and 60 minutes every hour, how much time do you analyze poems or find square roots of numbers? Do your amazing English and math abilities determine how happy, successful, healthy, friendly and productive you are?

I wish!

Learning depends greatly on the self-fulfilling prophecy of the teacher. Yes, I know, it sounds harsh, but the quality of the learning is highly dependent on what goes on in the teacher’s mind (and in the holistic approach, parents are also teachers). Every time I finish a day of professional development for teachers, the teachers are surprised to discover that what they think of the students manifests itself in the students’ behavior, social interactions and academic achievements.

Read Use Your Self-fulfilling Prophecy to Help Your Kids Succeed »

Common Myths about Kids’ Learning and Success

Sometimes, kids’ worst obstacles are their own parents’ misconceptions about kids’ learning and success. As a teacher, I have seen many kids struggle on a daily basis to meet the extremely high and unrealistic expectations their parents set for them. These high expectations for children usually go hand in hand with expectations parents set for themselves.

Such extreme standards bring pressure, tension, pain, depression and a great feeling of inadequacy, both for the parents, and the child. Unfortunately, children carry this feeling with them into adulthood, and raise their own kids using the same misconceptions.

Here are some common myths I have heard over the years, about what will bring success and facilitate kids’ learning.

Myth #1: Kids’ learning is improved by pain and punishment

It is true that humans over time have learned through cause and effect. They improve and evolve by seeing the consequences of their actions.

However, using punishment as a teaching tool does not make children learn what you think (not even if you call it “consequences”). They learn to be afraid and to avoid the punishment. The lesson you were trying to teach them is completely lost. This is because the need to avoid pain is stronger than almost anything and they will do whatever they can to avoid it.

The more painful the punishment, the less they will learn of what you are actually trying to teach them.

Read Common Myths about Kids’ Learning and Success »

Developing Good Character Traits for Children: H to Z

Good character traits are what every parent wants for their kids. We all know and believe that this can set them up for good, healthy, successful and happy lives. If we let go of the belief that character is something we are born with, something that is carved in stone, we realize that we, as parents, have the power to instill positive character in our kids.

We can give our kids those traits that they are going to need to run a happy and successful life, by instilling strong beliefs that support and build these good character traits.

In the last chapter, I gave examples of good character traits from A to G and what beliefs will support them. Here are the H- Z (well, H to W at least) traits and the beliefs that will support them.

This post is part 3 of 8 in the series Helping Kids Build Character

Read Developing Good Character Traits for Children: H to Z »

Parenting 101: Top Parenting Essentials

After coaching so many parents, and raising my own kids, I have accumulated many essential parenting tips that I want to share with you. I hope you find them useful.

Take care of your happiness first. Just like they tell you on a plane, you should put the oxygen mask on your own face before helping your kids. If you want to raise happy kids, you must take care of your own happiness first. If you do not have oxygen, you are no good to your kids. Happy Parents Raise Happy Kids.

Be positive. It is very easy to notice what your kids are doing wrong but harder to pay attention to the great things they are doing. Parents tend to take the good things for granted. In life, you get what you focus on and parenting is exactly the same. If you focus on good thing, you will have more of them. If you focus on problems, conflicts, difficulties, bad manners, you will have more of them. If you notice your child doing something good, say it! Praise kids for being kind, congratulate them for making an effort, acknowledge their kindness and you will see more of it.

Read Parenting 101: Top Parenting Essentials »

14 Ways of Developing Empathy in Kids

Elephant and young woman touching foreheads

Empathy plays a very important role in the interaction between human beings. I have been working with children for over 28 years and have found that although some kids are naturally empathic and others are not, empathy can be learned.

Empathy is just one of the elements of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). As teachers, we focus on 4 major components of EQ:

– Recognizing my feelings.
– Managing my feelings.
– Recognizing the feelings of others.
– Helping and supporting others to manage their feelings.

Empathy falls under component 3 (recognizing the feelings of others). Despite it being an element all on its own, we believe that it can contribute greatly to the development of the first two components. We believe that anyone who can understand the feelings of others is better at communicating, managing conflicts and generally has more successful relationships.

Read 14 Ways of Developing Empathy in Kids »

Teaching & Education Beliefs: Caring

Previously on Teaching & Education Beliefs, I wrote it was the last set of beliefs, but they were not. Sorry. Today’s beliefs are. Here are the last 20 of my top 100 beliefs about teaching and education.

All kids are gifted. Every child has some talent or skill. Teachers are there to help them develop and excel in it. But remember, numeracy and literacy skills are not the only gifts available and they are not great predictors of excellence in the future.

Kids’ hobbies are very important for their emotional intelligence, more than their academic success. Encourage kids to have hobbies, share yours with them, introduce them to different people with different hobbies and give a stage in class to share theirs.

This post is part 6 of 6 in the series Teaching & Education Beliefs

Read Teaching & Education Beliefs: Caring »

Teaching & Education Beliefs: Attitudes & Responsibilities

Here are the last 20 of my top 100 beliefs about teaching and education. Today’s beliefs are about teacher’s attitudes and responsibilities. To read all of them, check out the Teaching & Education Beliefs.

1. In order to raise a new generation of thinkers, teaching should encourage kids to question, even it is means they question you. During my lessons, I teach the kids to question me and the world around them; we should not keep doing things just because we always have. If we do that, we never grow and evolve. Our job as teacher is not to think for them, but to teach children to think for themselves.

2. If you focus on a child’s problems, all you will see is problems. If you focus on their strengths, you will see their gifts. Teachers consider kids problematic or gifted depending on what they focus on.

“Teaching is not about what we give our students but about what they choose to take. We spend too much time giving our students information and too little teaching them how to absorb it” – Ronit Baras

This post is part 5 of 6 in the series Teaching & Education Beliefs

Read Teaching & Education Beliefs: Attitudes & Responsibilities »

Teaching & Education Beliefs: Think Ahead

Teachers, just like everybody else, do better when they think ahead and get organized. Today’s 20 teaching and education beliefs are about this. If you are here for the first time, you may want to start reading “Teaching & Education Beliefs” from the start of the series.

1. When I need to cover a topic over 8 weeks, I aim to finish it early, maybe in 6 weeks. This gives me time to deal with unexpected circumstances that pop up. If everything goes to plan, we have 2 weeks to have fun. If not, we have two weeks to compensate for the delay.

2. If I want to help my student, I must take care of myself. Kids are born with senses to read the people around them. There is no point pretending when you are around them. They will be able to tell when something is wrong.

This post is part 4 of 6 in the series Teaching & Education Beliefs

Read Teaching & Education Beliefs: Think Ahead »

Kids Cheating with Mobile Phones: Who is to Blame?

Schools struggle a lot with the increased use of mobile phones by children. Many new regulations are in place to stop children from bringing mobile phone to school. At a primary school level, some schools ask the students to deposit their mobile phones at the office. In high schools, the phone devices are part of everyday life and a regular item in each class. In the past, teachers had to deal with the concentration and focus of the children. Now, they need to fight the attraction of the mobile phones as well!

With the introduction of mobile phones, one new problem that teachers to deal with is cheating on tests. In the past, students had to think of very sophisticated ways of writing cheat shits on paper, on their hand, the back of the ruler or the calculator. Kids today have a very handy way to keep the information and they use it well.

A survey conducted by a media sources with some common sense discovered that a third of teens with mobiles admitted to storing information on their phone, using it in an exam or texting their friends the answers while their friends are in the exam.

Read Kids Cheating with Mobile Phones: Who is to Blame? »

Smart Girl

The last month has been a bit cold in Brisbane (not snowing or anything, just chilly). We bought a pile of wood to put in our fireplace, but since our ceiling is very high, it takes a while to heat the whole house. So for the first 10 minutes of the morning, each of us has a small heater in the room and we get dressed in front of it and Gal and I have a radiator heater in our office, which keeps us fairly warm.

Last week, on Saturday, our 9-year-old daughter Noff got up and stood next to the radiator. She was feeling cold and while we prepared breakfast, she brought the radiator next to the dining table and stood next to it, refusing to move. While we were setting the table, she peeked under the dining table, looked at the radiator and said in a triumphant voice, “I have an idea!”

Read Smart Girl »