HEART & SOUL : Teachers, employers want kids who’ll try
Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Responses to a recent column about teaching kids a work ethic were emphatic and supportive. Not surprisingly, educators had plenty to say.
Typical letters included this one, from a teacher with 30 years of experience in Little Rock “I am constantly amazed by parents and teachers who think that saying ‘Oooh ! You are so wonderful !’ to children is all they need to do to raise those kids’ self esteem. I have long been an advocate of teaching children to do the right thing, no matter how hard, or how many ‘tries’ it takes. Thanks so much for addressing this in your article. Children learn by doing, and sometimes by doing over.” And this, from a young high school teacher in Tennessee who commented that the column made her cry “I struggle every day with these kids, students I adore who have some really fundamental issues perfectly outlined by your article. I go home at night so frustrated by what feels like a complete failure to make them see what they really are capable of, if they would just reach out for it.” Mistakes are the best teachers, this teacher noted, and then she asked the real question: When did we get so afraid to fail ?
Whether it’s parents who are afraid to fail by not raising perfect kids (an impossible task, of course ), or kids who are afraid to fail because they’ve never had the opportunity to learn how to recover from failure, this teacher is on to something. That something is the lesson that’s learned when we show kids how to do something and then make them do it again and again until they get it right.
Once they get it right, we have to follow up with the second step — we have to expect them to do that thing right from then on. We have to hold them accountable when they don’t.
Ultimately, these kids will meet the real world in the form of employers, who also had plenty to say about the column.
This note, from Bob Shoulders, owner of Fayetteville Athletic Club, summed up an employer’s frustration “It is really a disservice to the kids to make them think they can do no wrong. It never ceases to amaze me, but it occurs every day; I tell one of the high school or college-age kids who work here that they are doing something wrong and I correct their behavior. I can immediately tell by the look on their face that they have never been told anything but how wonderful they are. I really can’t blame the kids, but I would like to slap their parents.” Another employer, a grandparent whose business hires college-age adults, put it this way: “Work is hard, that’s why we pay people to do it. That message never got to a lot of these kids.
“ Oh, they say they want to work, but what they really want is to get a paycheck,” he continued. “The employees I keep are the ones who actually want to work and are willing to work hard, who want to feel good about doing a good job at something. Today, those employees are hard to find.” When kids haven’t learned how good it feels to do a good job, they can’t possibly take pride in their work. Work becomes a means to an end, the way they buy that car, that house, those clothes, rather than something that builds their sense of self-worth, resilience and independence.
One solution may be to change how we respond to efforts that fall short of the standard we expect. Instead of tolerating less than our children, students and employees are capable of, we could try something radical. We could practice, and use, statements like: “I see you made some effort, but the result isn’t what I expected. I know you can do better. Please try again.” Write to Jennifer Hansen at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 515 Enterprise Drive, Suite 106, Lowell, Ark. 72745. E-mail her at: jhansen@arkansasonline. com
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