If you’ve ever taught teens or kids I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about… <\/p>\n
For years every time I was interrupted like this it would cause my train of thought to derail and slam into the side of my head into a fiery burning wreck. And as I would pull my thoughts from the mental wreckage I would feel several different emotions.<\/p>\n
I would be ANNOYED I was interrupted with an unrelated question. I would be CONFUSED as why this student asked that question at that time. And I would be FRUSTRATED because the momentum I had gained in my explanation had come to a sudden halt.<\/p>\n
There were times when I’d answer with “Please focus on what we’re learning right now. It’s not time for games, it’s time for karate.”<\/p>\n
And other times I’d say, “Do we give black belts for being good at games or good at karate? Ok, so please focus right now.” <\/p>\n
And sometimes I probably even answered with a simple and stern, “NO!”<\/p>\n
All of these negative-based answers quash your students request and send a pessimistic response to your class. And when that happens the energy of your class takes a turn for the worse.<\/p>\n
However,after literally teaching thousands of classes I learned how to handle these interruptions. Now I simply say 2 magic words.<\/p>\n
These 2 magic words neither commit you to the request, nor do they deny your students hope.<\/p>\n
These 2 words have the power to create anticipation, generate curiosity and bring out the best in your students because they know there MIGHT be a chance for a reward later, if they TRY NOW.<\/p>\n
The two words are…<\/p>\n
“We’ll see.”<\/p>\n
It’s very simple really, but don’t underestimate the power of these 2 words when used in the right way.<\/p>\n
Because you’re not saying “NO” you won’t destroy your kids’ HOPE they might play a game later. But if you flat out say “NO”, all hope is lost. Then there’s a good chance that student WON’T work hard without reward, and possibly the rest of the class will follow suit.<\/p>\n
However, “We’ll see” allows you to keep your options open. If you have time at the end of class, sure you can go ahead and play the game as a reward. If there’s not enough time, then there’ll be no repercussions from your kids because you haven’t told a lie.<\/p>\n
Next time you get interrupted with a random request for an unrelated game or activity try this for yourself…<\/p>\n
Will it work for you?<\/p>\n
We’ll see…<\/p>\n
– Jason<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever been in the middle of giving an explanation while teaching basics and a hand shoots up with a totally random and unrelated question, like… “Sensei, can we play [insert favorite karate game here] ?” If you’ve ever taught teens or kids I’m sure you’ll know what I’m talking about… For years every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}