{"id":1471,"date":"2012-11-06T00:05:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T08:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karateteaching.com\/?p=1471"},"modified":"2012-11-07T08:27:30","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T16:27:30","slug":"creating-respectful-attentive-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/creating-respectful-attentive-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating Respectful Attentive Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week I took the night off from teaching and went to watch my 4 year old daughter at swim class. I rarely get to see Olivia swim because it conflicts with my teaching schedule, so I was excited to see her progress.<\/p>\n

While we are waiting for the private lesson before us to finish up, I’m sitting there watching a young female instructor teaching her student. The little swimmer must have been 3 or 4 years old and had all but one task to complete – to jump into the pool unaided and “swim<\/em>” to her instructor.<\/p>\n

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No,that’s not my daughter…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Ok, Rachel jump to me”<\/em>, says Sally and outstretches her arms so little Rachel has something to aim at.<\/p>\n

Little Rachel stands on the edge of the pool, knees bent with her arms outstretched…<\/p>\n

“Ok, Rachel. Jump!”<\/em>, repeats Sally.<\/p>\n

Rachel doesn’t move.<\/p>\n

“C’mon Rachel, jump!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Rachel reaches a little farther wanting Sally to take her hands and help her jump, but Sally won’t do that because that’s not what the kid is supposed to do.<\/p>\n

Sally holds her arms out a little closer almost to the point where they can touch each other and repeats her command.<\/p>\n

Rachel starts whimpering.<\/p>\n

Sally gets frustrated.<\/p>\n

“Jump!”<\/em>, she says more sternly.<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

“JUMP! NOW! RACHEL! JUMP!”<\/p>\n

At this point I think Rachel’s feet took root. She wasn’t going anywhere.<\/p>\n

“RACHEL. YOU NEED TO JUMP, NOW!”, exasperates Sally, as she clenches her teeth.<\/p>\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n

Rachel ain’t goin’ nowhere today, Sally.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Ok, Rachel. We’re done with class if you’re not going to jump. Is that what you want?”<\/em>, she grumbles.<\/p>\n

“Yes”<\/em>, comes the reply.<\/p>\n

I felt for Sally – and I’m sure you’ve been in a\u00a0 similar situation teaching karate. I know I sure have… but wait, here’s the kicker.<\/p>\n

As soon as little Rachel replies “Yes”<\/em>, Sally responds with “Ok, gimme 5! You did an awesome job today!!!”<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m sure Sally didn’t realize what she just did, and if you missed it too like I once would have, Sally made an AWFUL mistake right at that point.<\/p>\n

Sally just rewarded Rachel (high 5 and praise) for bad behavior (refusing to follow directions).<\/p>\n

Of course she was praising her for the whole day, not the immediate situation, but what do you think was going through the 3 year old’s head at that point? She just learned that when she doesn’t follow directions, it’s ok… and perhaps she might even get a high 5!<\/p>\n

Here’s another example.<\/p>\n

You leave your gate open and your dog runs out into the neighbor’s yard.<\/p>\n

You call your dog, “Fido!”<\/em>. Fido runs around, takes a leak on a tree, and continues to sniff the bushes. “Fido!”<\/em>, you call again but he ignores you.<\/p>\n

You keep calling, he keeps ignoring, until he’s done…. which takes about 60 seconds. By this stage you’re more than a little ticked off and your face is beet red. You’re now screaming at your dog at the top of your lungs, and Fido finally comes back.<\/p>\n

Because of your rage you start cursing, “You BAD dog! Fido, BAD DOG!! YOU BAD, BAD DOG!”<\/em>. Fido cowers down and you give him a whack on the butt with your shoe. That’ll teach him, right!<\/p>\n

WRONG!<\/p>\n

Think about what’s going through Fido’s head… I just came back and I got punished.<\/p>\n

If you were Fido, would you ever want to come back when that kind of thing happens? Next time you might as well sniff a bit longer before you get your punishment.<\/p>\n

Now you can argue a dog might not be capable of such multiple complex thoughts, but they can immediately make an association between action and consequence. Remember that Pavlov<\/a> guy?<\/p>\n

In both these examples, the wrong consequence followed the action or inaction.<\/p>\n

Sally shouldn’t have praised Rachel for not following directions.<\/p>\n

And you, our fictitious dog owner shouldn’t have punished Fido for finally<\/span> obeying your commands.<\/p>\n

When teaching karate or anything for that matter, be careful what you say and what you do next.<\/p>\n

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In case you’re wondering, this is my daughter…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If a student disobeys, don’t give them praise (even if it’s for something else). Give them the appropriate corrective action. Time out, push-ups, expulsion, or demotion depending on the severity of the situation.<\/p>\n

Of course in Sally’s case at the pool a time-out wouldn’t be appropriate at the end of the class for a 3 year old not following directions because she was fearful. However, instead Sally could withhold praise and the usual after-class reward since Rachel refused to complete her task and ignore directions.<\/p>\n

And when a wayward karate student obeys, or sets a good example, praise them up! Create good associations with paying attention,\u00a0 following directions and achievement.<\/p>\n

These kinds of small rewards strengthen the associations between good actions and positive consequences, and build respectful, attentive students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I took the night off from teaching and went to watch my 4 year old daughter at swim class. I rarely get to see Olivia swim because it conflicts with my teaching schedule, so I was excited to see her progress. While we are waiting for the private lesson before us to finish […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471"}],"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=1471"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1494,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471\/revisions\/1494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karateteaching.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}