learning new things

I am sitting in a puddle of sunshine on my sons bed as hubby paints the kitchen ceiling – heaven

But I have learnt a lot of new things in the last 3 days – specifically how to tile a wall.

As a teacher, I often forget how hard it is to attempt something you haven’t done before. And even though the hubby and I watched you-tube clips, read fliers, listened to the nice man at the hardware store, when push came to shove, hubby was really hesitant, where as I was ready to dive in, and if it cocked up I’d fix it. And low and behold, we have had some cock ups and are now hoping you can buy adhesive in little one of packets as we knocked a tile off trying to get the spacers out.

But on the whole, we have done a good job, I think it is awesome. And any sign of progress is awesome.

So where does this different in attitude come from? Why are some students so much more likely to attempt things, and others won’t for fear of getting it wrong. I had an extreme case in my old school where a student wouldn’t write the answers in her book until the correct answer were given, so she didn’t have to use twink. On an occasion when I got it wrong (I didn’t round properly) I got thoroughly scolded that she had made a mess of her book. Yet even my plan book is a mish mash of crossing out, different colours and crazy lines trying to frantically link ideas together.

And how can you temper these two ‘temperaments’. From my first term teaching co-ed, I think boys (in general) are much more about the go in and do it, and fix it or think about it later, where as girls do seem to be more catious in their approach. How can I smooth out the boys eagerness while encouraging the girls.

Or do I just sit back and let the boys explore, and hope/encourage/force the girls to join in? Is it just that there are lots of different people and learners, and each learner will have a different approach and trying to ‘force’ a quiet reserved learner into wide open spaces will be overwhelming.

So I’m thinking about strategies to help cautious learner embrace the unknown, and not to be so afraid of failure… if I find anything that works I’ll post about it here

Wish me luck