Is It Possible for Kids To Take Responsibility for Their Own Learning?

When I was at school, I remember always sitting at the back of the class and being one of the worst students. Only later on in life, during my Special Education studies, I learned about how kids are treated based on where they sit in the classroom.

Did you know that some seats are better than others and determine the teachers’ attitude towards the kids sitting in them? Well, I didn’t know this either and by the time I did, it was a bit too late for me to save myself all those frustrations at school.

But what I realised was that teaching the teachers about their varying attitudes based on sitting positions was missing the mark. Who do you think really needs to know this?

If you have answered “The kids”, you are right! But kids, of course, do not read blogs, so I would like to encourage you, the parent, to pass the information below to your kids and, by doing so, to allow them to take responsibility for their own learning and future success.

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Do You Really Believe That Setting a Goal Is Enough to Achieve It?

My immediate answer is “I wish”. I really do. Think about it – how easy it would be if all we needed is to set a goal, write it down (to make sure we will not change it often, based on circumstances) and let the universe take care of it, right?

But I am a person of action. I believe in motion as the ultimate way to growth and I that action speaks louder than words. While the universe is taking care of some of your goals, just because you wanted them, your actions will help you with the rest. When you set a goal and wait for an external source to fulfil it, you fail to help yourself and miss the opportunity to grow.

My Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) teacher did believe that it was enough. She said, “If you really, really want it, it will happen”, but I ask you, “How do you know if you really, really want something? When does your desire become ‘real’?”

When I want something, I can swear I really want it.

You see, some people set goals and do not achieve them, at least for a while, so they accept defeat by saying “Maybe I didn’t ‘really’ want this goal”.

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Interview with Ronit Baras on Her New Book "In the Outback with Jasmine Banks"

Following the announcement of her book “In the Outback with Jasmine Banks”, here is an interview with Ronit Baras about this inspiring story of a young woman’s personal journey to freedom.

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Beware of Pink Elephants

Most of our coaching clients ask us, “How come I keep getting all the things I don’t want to have in my life?”

Oddly enough, the answer is hidden in the question. It’s all to do with … pink elephants.

Our brain is a very sophisticated machine, with its own way of interpreting the things around us. It turns out that one particular thing our brain can’t understand is negatives. Whenever we hear or use the words “no”, “not” or “don’t”, the brain simply ignores them and keeps the rest.

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Diagnosing Learning Difficulties and Gifted Children in the Early Years

Drawing of cogs inside a head and symbols flying around

It was psychologist Howard Gardner’s book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, which first questioned the common psychological orthodoxy about intelligence, the intelligence quotient (IQ), and presented the revolutionary concept of Multiple Intelligences. At a time when a set of tests positioned children in a single spot on the bell curve and educators’ capacity to affect this position was seen as limited, the dawn of multiple intelligences shone a light at the end of a tunnel.

With this great recognition of our ability to enhance intelligence, the two extreme parts of the bell curve – the children with the learning difficulties and the gifted children – became the center of attention. Those two seemingly unrelated ranges of ability require the same type of attention and multiple intelligences brought hope for improvement for both.

A natural progression of that was the area of early diagnosis and early intervention. Should we diagnose learning difficulties during early childhood or will this put a label on them that is too hard to remove? Should we diagnose gifted children or will this doom them to isolation and social challenges? And once a special need is identified, should we intervene or just let nature take its course and allow the kids to “grow out of it”?

Each of the questions presents the choice between a reactive and a proactive approach. For government organizations, these questions are translated to the cost difference between the two, which then determines the approach. For teachers, however, critical time plays an important role in the choice.

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Overnight Success

I read a lot about success and attend personal development and wealth creation seminars. It is very inspiring. Unfortunately, the more I do this, the more I hear about people who are making it big time overnight.

The overnight success factor works very well on people who are not successful. It really helps sell stuff. Look at some of the best overnight success promotions:

– Lose 14 kilos in 14 days!

– How to make $250,000 from property without using your own money!

– Use this drink and be blond and beautiful in just 4 days! (OK, so I made this one up myself ;))

I bet overnight success was invented by unsuccessful people to help them feel better about their lack of success.

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Knowledge or Attitude?

For many years, knowledge was considered to be the ultimate factor for success in life. Many parents and educators still pump knowledge into kids’ brains, in hope this will bring kids to the desired achievements.

While in the past knowledge was something not all people could have, nowadays it is much more accessible. Unfortunately, knowledge is not the thing that will give kids the edge to succeed.

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How Do You Force a 17-Year-Old Boy to Go to School?

It is common belief that teens have to finish school in order to succeed in life, but that is not true. Sometimes, leaving school is the best thing that happens to them. For example, I was kicked out of school at the end of grade 10 and it was the best thing that happened to me. It was a strong wake-up call. In the end, I became a teacher.

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Music For The Mind

Did you know?

Children studying music from as early as grade 4 get to their first year of high school with an average academic score that is 11% higher than kids who did not study music.

If they continue their music studies into high school, by the time they graduate, their average academic score is 23% higher than kids who did not study music.

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Teaching Young Kids Money Management

Kids need to learn money management long before they leave home. When their friends have brand-name shoes or a computer game and your kid wants them too, understanding money is going to be very handy. So if you wonder when it is the right time to learn about money, my answer is: the minute your kid can count to 10.

Unfortunately, handling money is not something we learn at school. Just like many other life skills that we find necessary in adulthood, money management is also neglected while lots of energy is wasted on high levels of math.

Children can be taught at a young age that money is their way to get the things they want in life. It is, after all, your way of getting the things you want in life.

Here is how…

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