There are two fundamental reasons why adults repeatedly adopt inappropriate educational methods when teaching children, turning "education" into a destructive behavior: they don't trust children, and they believe in themselves too much.
Children are not naturally averse to homework, and some of them become averse to it later because their appetite for homework is spoiled by something during the school years, especially in elementary school. Being punished for writing homework is one of the most effective tricks to spoil the appetite.
There is a story in the Harvard Family Sermon: three bored young men, when they had nothing to do, often kicked the garbage cans in the neighborhood for fun, the residents were too disturbed, repeatedly discouraged, but to no avail, the more people said they kicked the more vigorous. Later, the community moved in an old man, thought of a way to make them stop kicking the garbage cans. One day when they kicked again, the old man came to them and said, "I like to hear the sound of the garbage cans being kicked, if you do this every day, I will pay you a dollar a day. Several young people were very happy, so they kicked harder. After a few days, the old man said to them, I recently economic tension, can not give you so much, can only give you 50 cents a day. The three young people were not very satisfied, and then kicked less vigorously. A few days later, the old man said to them again, I recently did not receive a pension check, I can only give you 10 cents a day, please understand. "10 cents? Do you think we will waste our time for this mere 10 cents? One young man exclaimed, and the other two said, "It's too little, we're not going to do it!" So they went away and stopped kicking the garbage can.
The old man was a master of the heart attack. Compared with the direct discouragement of others, the old man's persuasive work had no trace but obvious effect. Analyzing his method, we can see that the old man first turned the "fun" of several young people into a "responsibility" by "giving", which is the first step to reduce The first step is to reduce the "fun". Anything that involves exchange, supervision, responsibility, etc. is less fun when it includes these elements. Then, the seniors are stimulated to rebel against the whole kicking the trash can thing by reducing their payments, which is the second step. Finally, the old man further reduces the payment and gives them an unacceptable 10 cents to make them feel psychologically repulsed and rebellious about kicking the trash can. Thus, a few young people were originally amused by a thing to stand against their own, so that they become "victims". At this point, it will be difficult to let them do it again.
This story may not seem to be related to homework, but it contains educational ideas that can be applied to the management of children's homework. That is, teachers and parents need to use reverse thinking appropriately in mobilizing children's enthusiasm for homework, to stimulate children's enthusiasm for homework and not to stimulate children's aversion to it.
In reality, however, many teachers and parents use the wrong approach. The most typical and stupid approach is to use "homework" as a punishment to deal with a student's mistake. The mantra of many parents or teachers is "If you don't behave, you'll be punished with homework".
There are so many examples of this kind of punishment that it is shocking to see how heavy it is.
I heard a parent say that her son was punished by his teacher for forgetting to bring his English workbook and was punished by writing the words "It's not right for me to forget to bring my English workbook" a hundred times. The teacher did this, not for the sake of education at all, but simply for the sake of revenge. The child is vulnerable, and he has no choice but to write this sentence a hundred times. You can imagine how disgusting this will make the child feel, and the English class may become a disgusting course in his mind forever.
I have also seen a teacher, for the class disobedient children, not beaten nor scolded, just not allowed to play after class, called to the office to do homework. The child's stubbornness is cured, but by her governance of the children, basically never love to learn.
In an elementary school in Beijing, the children are required not to have a typo in their workbooks, and if there is a typo, not only does the word have to be written a hundred times, but the entire page has to be rewritten once. This "strain method" makes children fearful when writing homework, afraid to write a wrong word, they have long forgotten why they have to write homework, they are just writing homework for "no mistakes". Children are just starting to enter the journey of learning, and they are already losing the direction of learning.
A more tragic example is that on April 25, 2007, a junior high school student in Zengcheng City, Guangdong Province, was punished by his teacher for talking during an English test, and was punished by copying the words 10 times from the first to the fourteenth lesson. The child committed suicide that night.
Many parents and teachers, on the one hand, ask their children to love learning, but on the other hand, use "learning" as a violent means of discipline for their children. When "homework" becomes an instrument of torture, can it not be scary in the eyes of children, and can children still have a good feeling about it?
This problem can be traced to the end, at least three problems of these adults: First, in the education of children can not be delicate understanding of children's psychology, do not consider the work to the heart of the child, but only satisfied with the child's superficial, temporary obedience; Second, they do not love learning, subconsciously take learning as a chore, will be angry in the search for "instruments of torture "Third, the sense of authority becomes unbridled in front of the children who have no power to fight back, and the evil in human nature is accidentally revealed.
Homework of a punitive nature is invariably said to be for the sake of the child, but in fact its first motive is simply that the adult is taking out bad breath and has nothing to do with education. It only destroys children's learning, not makes it whole. In essence, it is just a means of violence by teachers or parents against students.
Children are not naturally averse to writing homework, and some of them become averse to it later because something has spoiled their appetite for it during the course of their schooling, especially in elementary school. Being punished for writing homework is one of the most effective tricks to spoil the appetite. Just like the "Manhan Quanquan" everyone loves to eat, but if we treat a person this way, let him eat Manhan Quanquan every day, and he must eat enough every day, less than a bite will be punished to eat more than a hundred mouth - so try it for a while, this person later again See the food does not vomit is strange.
Dewey said "all needs and desires contain lack". Let's remember this statement and think about it carefully.
In turn, it can be deduced that if you want someone to like and cherish something, you should not give too much in this regard, and you should not use it as a quid pro quo or a punishment to force him to accept it. Also and most importantly, let him act with a sense of pleasure, accomplishment and self-esteem - this is universally applicable whether in learning or other things.
When Yuan Yuan was in first grade, she was once very inattentive to her homework, and her handwriting was crooked and uncharacteristic. Her father inadvertently glanced at it and was surprised how she wrote the homework in such a way, criticizing her for being perfunctory and hoping she would rewrite it. Yuan Yuan was not convinced and yelled unreasonably with a very bad attitude. This angered her father. He roughly tore off a page of Yuan Yuan's homework that she had already written a few lines on and asked her to rewrite it. Yuan Yuan cried and started to rewrite it, because she knew that she could not do it without writing. After a short while, her father went to see her again and found that her writing was worse than the previous time, as if she was deliberately trying to oppose him. He then criticized her again, and Yuan Yuan became more confrontational in her emotions. Her father was so angry that he tore out the page again and demanded that she must write seriously or else. Yuan Yuan cried again, threw away her pen, and said she would not write anymore. When her father saw that it was late, he was a bit anxious and reasoned with her, saying that it was so late and she had to go to school tomorrow, so if you write carefully, you can write it all at once and you won't have to delay so much. I don't care about his reasoning, he just won't write.
I realized that her father had made a mistake and was doing the opposite of what he was supposed to do. I quickly walked over, pulled away from the angry gentleman, picked up the torn homework paper to look at it, and calmly said to Yuan Yuan, "It's really not right for you to write like this, look at how the words are written." When Yuan Yuan heard me say the same thing, she became more and more unconvinced and took on a "just don't write" look. I looked at her attitude and said to her in a pleasant way, "If you think writing homework is a bad thing, you don't have to do it anymore from today."
I moved to collect her homework book, and Yuan Yuan was a little confused in the moment, staring at me dumbfounded. I picked up her workbook, closed it, and said to her, "Studying is a good thing, and it looks like you don't want to study. So ......" I rolled the workbook in my hand and told her with certainty in my tone, "I want to revoke your right to write homework, and you are not allowed to do it anymore!"
The first time I saw that I was serious, I panicked and subconsciously tried to snatch the workbook back. She must have thought at that moment that if she couldn't finish her homework, she would be criticized by the teacher at school tomorrow. She hugged my arm and stood on tiptoe to snatch the workbook back, shouting "Give it to me, give it to me". I held the workbook up to keep it out of her reach. I said, "If you write like that and are not so serious, you should be disqualified from writing homework, don't write." Yuan Yuan was so anxious that she was going to cry again, and she tried to snatch back the workbook while saying, "I want to write properly, give it to me!"
When I heard her say this, I also took a more moderate attitude and asked her not to grab the homework first, but to sit down and talk with her.
I asked, "Just now Daddy asked you to write properly, but you didn't want to, and you did so badly both times. I want to ask you, do you think it is a bad thing to do your homework properly and that it is better to write poorly?" Yuan Yuan replied no, saying that it was better to write properly.
I asked her again, "Is it very tiring to write well and easy to write badly?" She shook her head and said no. I thought about it and said to her realistically, "There may be a little difference between writing carefully and not writing carefully, and it takes a little more effort to write well, doesn't it?" She said yes, and then she looked a little more cheerful.
I then asked, "Do you think it's better to write your homework neatly or messily?" Yuan Yuan said it was better to write neatly and tidily.
I deliberately provoked her, "But writing neatly is not as easy as writing messily. You see, writing messy just need to take a pen and just scratch it on the book, but writing neatly needs to be serious, to write every stroke, every word and every line well. I think it's easier to write poorly." Yuan Yuan thought for a moment and said, "No, it's just as easy! Because, because ......"
She wanted to express something, but couldn't organize her words at once. I asked her, "Are you trying to say that it takes the same amount of effort to write well or badly? For example, if a character is five strokes, it is five strokes for both good and bad writing, neither more nor less, is that what you mean?" I said what she wanted to say in her mind, she was very happy, her eyes brightly said yes, her look has been greatly frank.
I picked her up and put her on my lap and said, "Well, in that case, it takes about the same amount of effort to write well or badly, and it is more pleasant to write seriously, isn't it?" Yuan Yuan said yes. Our conversation had been very pleasant up to this point.
By now, I have made Yuan Yuan actively express the idea that "homework should be written properly" through the conversation. Having achieved this, all that remained was to reinforce her idea and give her a step down.
I looked at the two pieces of paper on the table that my father had torn off and said, "Today, my father also did something wrong and should not have torn the homework book. The fact that Xiao Yuan Yuan did not write her homework neatly today is an experiment. She learned that writing homework neatly and writing messily use the same amount of effort, but she feels better when she writes well. If you don't try this, how can you know this, don't you think so?" Yuan Yuan nodded her head, feeling that this was the case, and looked at her father with a straight face. Her father quickly apologized to Yuan Yuan, saying he shouldn't have done that.
I added, "I'm sure you'll do your homework carefully from tomorrow, so you won't be silly and make yourself unhappy, will you?" Yuan Yuan nodded affirmatively and said yes.
I looked at her with approval and trust and said, "In that case, mommy will return the book to you. It seems that mommy was wrong about little Yuan Yuan too." When the lost and found workbook was returned to her hand, Yuan Yuan was completely free of confrontation with her parents and resistance to homework, and spread the book again with a cherished look.
At this point, I thought of the fact that children are prone to repetitive behavior, so I should give her a precautionary shot and try to give her a good mindset when facing homework, so that she can have a psychological basis for self-adjustment in case of repetition. I said, "If you don't want to write your homework seriously one day, you can also write your homework in a mess and do another experiment to see how different it is from writing it seriously and not seriously, and to experience which is better." Yuan Yuan said, "No need to try, it's better to write seriously", and I could see that she really meant it.
I didn't say anything else, kissed her little cheek and walked away. When she went to bed at night, we quietly took out the book from her school bag to see, and it was written neatly. Since then, Yuan Yuan has been able to do her homework properly and never let us worry about it again.
I heard many parents complaining about their children not doing their homework properly, so I told them this idea of "punishing you and not letting you do your homework". Some of them shook their heads and said: "My child, if you punish him for not doing his homework, he will be so happy that he will not be afraid of the teacher's criticism the next day.
Such children do have, but this behavior no longer represents the nature of children, but only a consequence of the nature has been repeatedly distorted. It is not an overnight problem, but a "disease" that has entered a more serious stage in the child. The cause of this "disease" is most likely the fact that when the child was first faced with the problem of not wanting to do homework, he or she encountered a problem-solving parent or teacher like Yuan Yuan's father. Although the specific approach may be different, the simple and brutal nature is the same, that is, to punish the child to write homework. Over time, this hurts both the child's interest in writing homework and their self-esteem, making them bored and cheeky.
There are two fundamental reasons why adults repeatedly adopt inappropriate educational methods in educating children and turn "education" into a destructive behavior: first, they do not trust children, and second, they believe in themselves too much. That is, first of all, they do not believe that children's instinct is self-love and advancement, and worry that if they are not disciplined in time, their children will go all the way down; secondly, they think that what they say to their children are golden words and can make them better.
In response to this problem, the philosopher Fromm's quote is worthy of parents' consideration a thousand times: "The opposite of education is manipulation, which, out of lack of confidence in the growth of the child's potential, believes that only adults to guide the child what to do and what not to do, the child will get the normal development. Yet such manipulation is wrong."
So parents and teachers must be careful not to get on the wrong side of education when managing children. Ask yourself in every specific case: am I educating my child or am I manipulating him or her. A child who is manipulated can't help but devote his or her mind to counter manipulation, and he or she will gradually become unconcerned with the words of adults, degenerate, and lose his or her sense of reason and self-love. Writing homework is the most intensive expression of "education" or "control" in children's education, and this is the most important thing for parents to reflect on.
Fromm adds, "The use of destructive means has its own consequences, namely, it actually changes the ends. Even though the end remains in the perception."
In any specific educational detail, parents must consider the alignment of ends and means. Using homework as a torture device or as a prize is not a small distinction; it is the watershed that determines whether you are moving toward the end or toward the opposite of the end.
Special tips
● Teachers and parents should use reverse thinking appropriately in mobilizing children's enthusiasm for homework. They should stimulate children's enthusiasm for homework and not stimulate their aversion to it.
● Homework of a punitive nature is invariably said to be for the sake of the child, but in fact its first motive is only that the adult is taking out bad breath and has nothing to do with education; it only destroys, not makes whole, the learning of children.
● If you want a person to like and cherish something, you should not give too much and too full in this regard, much less use it as a quid pro quo or a means of punishment, forcing him to accept it, but rather deprive him appropriately so that he can develop a sense of cherishing through a sense of crisis and dissatisfaction.
The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on a lack of confidence in the growth of the child's potential and the belief that the child will develop normally only if adults are there to guide the child in what to do and what not to do. However, such manipulation is wrong.