I believe it is unwise to curtail the natural-born genius in children. We instead need to reveal it by linking it to what we want to teach them in a meaningful way.
I was in Seattle in the United States at a university and about to speak to a theology class and right outside the door there were students studying. I had 20 minutes to spare and, while I waited, I noticed a boy who looked challenged and anxious. I didn’t want to disturb him, but I also thought I could help him. So I said: “I see that you are about to take what looks like a mathematics test.”
He said yes, but that he was anxious and unprepared. I asked him if he would like some ideas that might help him to do better. His reply was affirmative. I explained that any subject you take where you can’t see how it connects to your highest values will go into short-term memory.
But once you can see how it fulfils your highest values, it will go into long-term memory. How many times have you met someone and, when they gave their name, you forgot it before they had finished saying it? But if it is someone whom you deem to be important, you will repeat it so you won’t forget it in the future. This is the same reason so many children are labelled with attention deficit disorder.
They are usually children with a narrow value system, who don’t relate to all of their subjects. But that same child can have an autographic, photographic and audiographic memory when it comes to video games and can focus for six hours or more. It is far more probable that they have a teacher who isn’t inspired by the curriculum and who isn’t taking the care to find out the child’s values and communicate the curriculum in terms of those values.
I asked the student what he enjoyed doing. He said skiing. So I said: “Can you see how doing well in maths is going to make you a better skier and how to apply it to your skill?” The student said no. I asked him: “Aren’t you coming down on an inclined plane and, therefore, you have the forces of gravity and -movement at play?”
I started showing him the relationship between the dynamics of skiing and maths. The more I linked it, the more inspired he became and the more his mind awakened and absorbed it to use it. After we learn something, the faster we share it with somebody, the better it is retained. Would you agree that, when you learn something that inspires you, you want to share it? It is a natural tendency.
I sat there for the 20 minutes linking the boy’s mastery in skiing with maths. Before he got up to go into the test, he gave me a hug and said: “I never saw maths like that before. It could give me a real advantage in skiing.”
You can take any class and any value system and make the link. Before every class all the way through my education I asked myself how taking that particular class was going to help me with what was most meaningful to me. That is one of the most powerful questions you will ever ask yourself.
I would not stop answering it until I saw it and once I did, I didn’t take the class because I had to, I took the class because I wanted to. I had become a vehicle of receptivity. But it’s only one half of the equation; as a teacher, you also need to link what you are teaching with your highest values so you go to work full of enthusiasm.
Would you agree that you know when you are feeling inspired and fulfilling your dream as opposed to just doing your job? When you truly want to teach, the student is far more inclined to want to learn.
Win
Dr John Demartini will be delivering his one-day programme called Young Adults Inspired Destiny on June 16 in Johannesburg. One teacher and his or her nominated learner stand to win a place at the programme. Just send your con- tact details, your nominated stu- dent’s name and brief answers to the following questions to info@ drdemartini.co.za.
- What inspired you to become a teacher?
- What is special about the learner you nominated?
Dr John Demartini is a human behavioural specialist, an internationally published author and a consultant. For further information on any of Dr Demartini’s upcoming talks or programmes, visit www.drdemartini.co.za