Praise & Encouragement

Chapter four of Marzano talks about reinforcing effort and providing recognition. This chapter was very informative to me as a teacher and a mother. I understand how effective recognizing effort can be for a teacher. I have seen students who did not believe they could accomplish something try very hard and do well. The ecstatic look on their faces when I confirmed how well they did was priceless. This is not an easy task for a teacher to accomplish. Spurring on those students who have low self-esteem or an “I don’t care” attitude to try harder is like trying to get kids to eat spinach. Many times your efforts can be in vain, however, trying is still warranted. I need to remind myself of this when dealing with my own children, particularly my fifth grade son who has entered an alien-like world. I know these are normal changes for him to be going through, but making him understand effort is like teaching him Latin. The teacher that I am working with seems to do well with this at times, while struggling with it at other times. Her class of 24 students has only 3 girls in it. It is a very active class with so many boys. Several of these boys need more attention than the others. A word of praise or encouragement would go a long way with them. The teacher fails to do this regularly. The praise that she could offer them may very well be the only praise that they ever hear. When she does give them praise, it is easy to see the difference it makes. For instance, one of the boys did very well in a group project that she did recently. She took him aside and explained to him how well he did, encouraging him to keep trying. She also made it a point to praise him in front of the other students. When the group project was over, and they returned to independent work, this student's grades maintained at the higher grade level than he previously had. Marzano states that, "reinforcing effort can help teach students one of the most valuable lessons they can learn - the harder you try, the more successful you are!" I hope the students in this class, especially the few that really need it, understand this!