Child Series - Very untidy work!!

 Child Series -  Very untidy work!!

 

I was in third or fourth grade in a state board school. I think it was the English period. We were asked to write a small paragraph on the postman and to stick a picture of the postbox. We had to do it at home. I remember using a blade for some reason and I did a very untidy job of cutting the post box from the chart paper and sticking it to my notebook. My handwriting too was not very neat. When the books were returned, I saw that the teacher wrote at the left bottom corner of the left page, the remark “Very untidy work." She also asked me to get my mother to sign the page. I was of course very upset on receiving this remark. I did not want to show this to my mother. So I cut off the corner of the page having the offending remark, leaving the rest of the page intact. The next day, the teacher asked if I took my mother’s signature. I showed the book and said that the section of the page where the remark was written, tore off. My teacher said that it had been cut. Then she lifted the book and showed all my classmates and asked if the section head was torn off or had been cut. Everyone chorused “It has been cut”. The teacher punished me by making me stand outside the classroom. The punishment was for a variety of bad behaviours...cutting off the remark, not getting my mother's signature and lying. Soon after, my teacher called my mother who was a teacher in the same school and complained to her in my presence and in the presence of all my classmates. I looked down at my shoes all the time, dreading the music that I knew I would have to face at home. 

This and many more such examples left a deep impression on me and made me reflect. What is the kind of feedback expected from parents and teachers? Making a child feel bad or training the child to become better?

The article “The power of positive meaningful feedback on student success” in curiousneuron.com states, “Students should not only hear about errors, they need to know where they stand regarding their knowledge on concepts, whether there were improvements in their effort and where they stand in terms of the goals for that topic for assignment.” The same article also states “Generic comments such as 'great work' or 'keep up the hard work' are positive, but not meaningful.”

If the teacher had said to me “Good ideas Radha, I can see that you have put in work on your transitions, which is our goal and you are really doing well there. We need to work on your sentence construction and we need to focus on your handwriting and neatness”, perhaps, I would not have felt so miserable. 

As teachers and parents, we sometimes blame or praise without acknowledging the quality of work that has been done. We also sometimes merge the product/behaviour with the child. So it is “You are lazy and don't put in effort” instead of “Your work shows that you have not put in enough effort. Let us discuss what problems you had in completing the work”. Or, it is “Very good” or “Good job” instead of “The response shows your understanding of this topic” or “I really liked the way you have explained the issue” 

Positive feedback helps by boosting the students’ self confidence and “has an impact on the student’s perception of themselves and can consequently influence their effort and grades." Let us put ourselves in the shoes of our students. What kind of feedback would we like to receive? What kind of feedback will be meaningful to us? Will it let us correct our mistakes in a manner that does not hurt our self esteem? So let us as parents and teachers be more conscious and give our children the same kind of positive feedback that we would like to hear! 

Excerpts are from:

https://www.curiousneuron.com/learningarticles/2018/1/31/the-power-of-positive-and-meaningful-feedback-on-student-success

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