From the Desk of Keith Hafner

For Teachers, Parents, Bosses, and Other Leaders…

People in these categories have one thing in common.  They are all confronted with the task of teaching other people how to do things.

Here is a typical scenario:  The boss (parent, scout leader, etc) shows the new employee (student, child, trainee, etc) how to do something.

The new employee tries hard but doesn’t do it very well.

The boss is critical of the performance.

The employee resents the critical treatment.

An adversarial tone then develops…which makes it impossible for the new task to be mastered.

If you are a parent, a supervisor, or any other person with teaching responsibility, you’ve seen this time and time again.

In fact, we’ve been on both ends of this, haven’t we?  We’ve probably been at fault on the teaching end…and we’ve almost certainly been the victim of this when we’ve been on the learning end.

The key:  It takes a LOT more instruction to get people to do things the right way than most people expect.

Teachers must understand this…and NEVER become frustrated with the student.

The minute the parent, teacher, or boss becomes frustrated…learning STOPS!