The best way to teach whether as an educator employer or a parent is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones

‘It is never too late to learn’. This age-old philosophy has been passed down over generations, from parents to their children, teachers to students. However, in order to encourage learning, the way any subject matter is taught plays a primary role in inducing further interest in the pupil in order to help them achieve their dreams. The recommendation states that the best way to teach is to avoid the negatives and focus on the positives. I mostly agree with the aforementioned idea, and shall be presenting two reasons why it should be encouraged and one reason why this may not be the right approach.

Positive feedback is extremely important. Be it an educator, employer or a parent, giving positive feedbacks always helps the student with their self-esteem and encourages them to work more towards the end goal. For example, a young intern at an accounting firm who has just graduated from college has little clue about the professional ethics and the organizational atmosphere, and apart from the theoretical knowledge, a practical experience is close to nil. The task of the employer in this case is not only to teach the intern to get the work done for the firm’s sake in the short-run, but also to provide him/her with positive feedback for the contributions made, while giving constructive advice on how they can improve further. This would encourage the intern to work more and think about the effect of his work on the organization as a whole.

Moreover, positive feedback leaves a pleasant memory in the students’ mind and encourages them to be more open with their instructors with regards to any doubts they have or any problem that is troubling them at a given point of time. This, in turn benefits the relationship that the students have with their instructor and ultimately, learning would be a fun process. For example, students generally are either very scared of mathematics, or absolutely abhor the subject. And more often than not, it is a result of the way it is taught and not the subject-matter itself that entices this hatred. If the teachers focused more on the effort while giving constructive feedback instead of castigating students for their mistakes, the students would have taken a deep interest in learning the subject and may grow into bright engineers, scientists, mathematicians, etc.

However, while focusing on the positives does have a positive impact, ignoring the negatives might hinder the growth of the pupils. For instance, a young adult learning to drive a motorcycle might have the habit of pressing the front brake while accelerating, due to the fear of giving it too much of a raise and injuring themselves. While an instructor must definitely focus on the safety precautions taken by the student, ignoring this practice might take the form of bad driving practices on the road, which could eventually cause harm/injury in an unforeseen circumstance.

To conclude, I agree with the recommendation that the best way to teach, whether as an educator, employer or a parent – is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones. While the positives are obvious, one should also keep the negative aspects in mind and take actions accordingly.