Positive Change

Early on in my teaching career I discovered that students can easily arrive at the end of a semester making the same mistakes as they did on the first day of school. Correcting student error involves a lot more than marking red X's.

The best way to cope with inaccuracy is to prevent it in the first place. When it comes to education an ounce of prevention is worth many pounds of cure. If a student does correct practice at an appropriate level accompanied by fast and accurate feedback, the student forms good habits which provide a solid foundation for future learning.

If, on the other hand, a student practices mistakes, those errors become more and more deeply entrenched. The student has turned onto a wrong road and must come all the way back again just to start over. Coming all the way back again is very discouraging. That process can take months or years of struggle if a bad habit becomes well established.

Students can practice errors in every subject at every level. A young student may print letters from the bottom up. This habit often leads to poor letter formation and placement on the line. Incorrect printing, in turn, produces difficulty in learning cursive and interferes with all aspects of written expression. Until the student learns to type, that student endures the consequences of turning in partly legible papers. Some students consistently omit punctuation, capitalization, or spaces between words. Their papers are hard to read. Discouragement and low grades often follow. Some students guess at answers to math facts, rather than acquiring strategies for finding correct answers. These students usually dislike the very thought of math. Guessing is also a problem in reading. The habit of visual guessing at words without awareness of sound-symbol correspondence can be devastating. Beginning reading students need to be sounding out words before attempting stories with many new words.

Older students often need to improve their study habits. As subjects become more difficult they will probably have to keep the TV, telephone, computer games and chat quiet on nights before school days. More mature students should keep a calendar of test and assignment due dates. If a student has a hard time understanding math, science, grammar, or other cognitively demanding subject, the student needs immediate assistance from someone who does understand it. A student who lacks comprehension resorts to rote memorization, a highly inefficient strategy that eventually produces failure. Rote memorization with little comprehension can get a student past a chapter test, but provides a poor foundation for future learning.

Positive change comes about when a person uses a good habit to replace a bad habit. The first step in this process is to identify the bad habit that is causing the problem. This first step requires the humility to admit that a bad habit has formed. Humility is psychologically difficult for many people. However, the price of pride is going a long way on the wrong road. Then the person needs even more humility to come all the way back and start at the beginning again.

The second step to positive change is acquiring the good habit. The student who begins letters at the bottom needs to practice starting letters at the top. The student who guesses at math facts must learn strategies for getting correct answers the first time. The student who plays computer games instead of studying has to keep the computer screen dark during study time.

The third step to positive change is rooting out the bad habit entirely so it can never grow back again. People become very attached to their bad habits over time and gradually lose awareness of the consequences of hugging their villains. Tearing the habit away hurts and makes a disorganizing hole in the total habit pattern. That's why it's so important to replace the bad habit with a good habit. The hole can easily be filled with another bad habit if it isn't already filled with something better. If, however, the good habit begins to grow, the person experiences success, and the positive change flourishes.

"If your eye causes you trouble, pluck it out. If your right arm causes you trouble, cut it off." Our Lord Jesus Christ knew what we need to do about bad habits. Following His advice will keep us enjoying many positive changes in our lives.

Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.
Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School
newskill7@msn.com

by Mary Sue Laing, M. Ed., New Skill, Inc. Academic Tutor