The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones

hen my father was a child, his teachers would hit the students with a wooden stick, anytime they did something wrong, after fifty years of improvements in pedagogy we have learnt that this is a very ineffective method of teaching and it has become obsolete. Focusing on positive actions, praising them and ignoring negative ones, is the way forward.

All human beings, want to feel important and good about ourselves, when we were a child learning multiplication my peers and I did not find motivation to learn all the multiplication tables, our patient teacher started praising Kim, my classmate who learnt all the tables. Instead of punishing us for not learning she praised those who would learn, this made us all eager for praise, and once we start getting praise, we get addicted.

From the early days of domestication, we have trained dogs not by scaring them but by positive reinforcement: rewarding them with food and love when they sniff out prey.
The phrase,”Good Boy!” praising our canine friends has become a global standard, and the same is applicable to our children: when they get good marks, they get praise, which puts them in a cycle of getting good marks in every exam.

The corporate world is fuelled by countless employees, working extra hard to impress their managers and when the employees efforts are recognised he feels valued and works even harder. This is the premise of many award ceremonies, they serve the purpose of boosting employee morale.

It can be said that completely ignoring negative actions can prove to be deadly, if we find our child doing something wrong and ignore her, she might never realise that it is wrong, which is why it is necessary to bring it to her notice, that she is not doing the right thing.

All in all, it can be said with confidence that praise is much more powerful teacher than condemnation.