Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan

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Teachers often struggle with de-motivated students. They literally pull their hair to figure out ways to help this kind of students and have them succeed in the classroom. However, motivation is such an abstract thing that it is hard to externally force it onto a child. It all boils down to the individual student’s decision. Choosing to become motivated or not is up to the student. Teachers can only do so much! But there is something interesting about motivation that is worthy of our attention at this juncture.

Infants cry for many reasons. Usually, they cry when they are hungry, wet, or experience discomfort. There are times when they cry because they are angry (clearly, anger is an inherent emotion…accentuated by the environment). What fascinated me these few weeks is the fact that infants also cry when they are deprived of some learning. Yes! They cry when they are held back from LEARNING. There is an obvious paradox between how children respond to learning when they are younger and when they are a little older. Why does this happen?

I learned about this from my son, Michael. He started crawling a few weeks ago and he gets excited about moving around the house, and every where else. There was a time he was so persistent about being carried around. This was when he couldn’t move on his own and wanted to see, hear, and feel different things. Now however, he prefers to be down on the floor…exploring and gaining control of his immediate environment. There are times when I had to remove him from a particular spot (in the house or else where) because he got hold of hazardous objects. Sadly, he is not (yet) able to perceive the inherent danger in the objects that attract his attention. All he knows is that he longs to learn about everything around him. For Michael, learning is fun, exciting, and a very integral part of his life. If I tried removing his opportunities for learning…he cries (on top of his lungs!!!). Every time this happens, I smile! I smile because I didn’t have to do anything to MOTIVATE my son to learn.

This is not the case in the classroom, at school. Students do not cry to get motivated to learn. In fact, they cry not wanting to study. In the end, parents and teacher shed more tears hoping to see their students develop an intrinsic desire to learn and become successful individuals.

What has gone wrong then? Every individual starts out as a curious infant who is highly motivated to learn. But significant adults, due to their busy and tired life, require their young children to DO NOTHING and KEEP QUIET. Adults are selfish in many ways in that they always seek to maximize their own pleasure and reduce (significantly) learning opportunities for children.

Imagine this: If I really want to continue encouraging my son to explore and learn from his environment, I must constantly clean the house, arrange his toys, clean him, stay awake with him and lose sleep, sacrifice my own play, talk to him (even though his language at this stage makes no sense to me), show him different ways to hold and manipulate objects, cry with him, etc. The list is not exhaustive. It goes on and on. There are tones of other things that I need to do if I want to provide continual opportunities for Michael to ‘indulge’ in learning.

This is where most adults fail. By the time a child gets into the school, he/she is fully aware of the fact that the adults at school are no different from the ones at home. They too are too lazy and unconcerned to allow opportunities and support for learning. Thus, children, in order to avoid possible pain, disappointment, and embarrassment, choose to ‘act’ de-motivated in whatever happens in the classroom and the school at large.

The good news is: Motivation can be awakened by allowing students to entertain the little children in themselves. When they are given deliberate and concrete evidences of appreciation and recognition for their childlike desires to learn (most often, learning in children takes place in an unconventional manner), they will become allies with teachers and commit themselves to building new learning communities that are intrinsically motivated and achievement oriented.

Increasing motivation in students is not an impossible task. But trying to do it through psychological and educational interventions often proves to be a failure. Rather, teachers would do well if they recognize the fact that students are inherently motivated and that teachers can provide environments in which this dormant (put-to-sleep) aspect of learning comes alive!

Copyright July 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com

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“We find that people’s beliefs about their efficacy affects the sorts of choices they make in very significant ways. In particular, it affects their levels of motivation and perseverance in the face of obstacles. Most success requires persistent efforts, so low self-efficacy becomes a self-limiting process. In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, strung together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.” – Albert Bandura

Often, educators’ and psychologists’ suggestions to bolster students’ self-esteem seem abstract, mystical, and out-of-reach. Although I don’t deny the usefulness of such suggestions and strategies, there are still questions in my mind pertaining to the attainability and practicality of such proposals.

For example, in the late 1980’s and early 1990s’, the world was flooded with self-development books. People all around the world talked about positive self-image and suggested ways to attain one. Most of the suggestions that I have personally came across were inspiring and emotionally moving (in the form of quotations). However, authors in this field were labeled as having exceptional verbal/linguistic intelligence and knew how to manipulate and play with words to touch our minds and hearts. These inspiring quotations do little or nothing to actually change one’s self-image in a favorable manner.

Words (ingeniously put together to form clauses and sentences) can elicit mental reactions, and arouse emotions. However, positive self-talks do not necessarily intervene in situations where they are truly required. Even if one recalls an inspiring quotation from a great writer in moments of emergency, it is unlikely that the quotation itself serves as a tool to respond and gain control over the emergency situation. Most often, humans react, rather than respond to situations in which they find great amount of frustration and discomfort. In this sense, we as humans continue to develop and experience lowered image of ourselves due to our inability to gain control of circumstances that come our way on a daily basis.

In my opinion, we need to be more concrete when we talk about building the self-esteem of students. Teachers know that anything that cannot be observed and measured are difficult to attain. That’s one reason why teachers are required to write SPECIFIC objectives in their lesson plans. These objectives are used to gauge the quality of teaching and learning. Without them, teaching will take place haphazardly and accomplish little or nothing!

How can we be specific about a psychological construct like self-esteem? How can we help build self-esteem of students in an observable and measurable manner? The answer is: use specific, observable, and measurable classroom intervention! Let me explain.

What kind of students do you think suffer from low self-esteem in the classroom? (For now, let’s forget about others factors that contribute to a low self-esteem, like the home environment, neighborhood, SES, etc. Instead, let’s focus on the teaching-learning experiences and how self-esteem is related to these two activities that take place in the classroom).

You are right! Students who suffer from low self-esteem in the classroom are those who have not performed well and who think (wrongly) that they will never perform well (in one or more subjects). Albert Bandura was correct when he proposed that there is a direct, positive correlation between self-efficacy and self-esteem. According to him, the knowledge (awareness) and ability to master (or gain control) and achieve competence in different areas of learning are necessary to bolster the self-esteem of students. Students feel small and de-motivated when they experience significant lack of control in their pursuit to accomplish different academic tasks.

I can relate my personal experience to illustrate this point. I grew up in an unstable home and my childhood experiences gave me more reasons to develop low-esteem than otherwise. When I went to school, there were subjects that I excelled in, and there were also subjects that I struggled with. One such subject (at high school) was math. I struggled with math and continued to struggle simply because my math teachers constantly instilled in me a hopeless attitude toward the subject (“You can’t become competent in math because you are not made for it. So forget about mastering the subject”). Eventually, my math teachers were successful in psyching me to think that I can never master the subject of math, hence, ruining my self-esteem (by reducing my self-efficacy in this particular subject). Their views about my abilities in math were so untrue because during my ninth grade, I had Chinese friends who personally helped me with the subject. I scored high in the board exam, qualifying me to a science stream/specialization at tenth grade. By not helping me through appropriate intervention, my math teachers were responsible in destroying the way I looked at myself and my ability to gain control of a relatively easy subject such as math.

Teachers often use their time and energy to ‘select’ capable students and work exclusively on making them better. But isn’t this a futile endeavor especially when education is supposed to build and nurture each individual student in the classroom? Instead of engaging in the selection of already-capable students (and working solely with them), teachers should consider everyone in the classroom as needing positive intervention in BUILDING and DEVELOPING competence. When this happens, students’ will be helped to view themselves in a more positive and hopeful manner.

Since the main activity in the classroom is the learning of subjects, helping students to gain control (mastery) over academic subjects would lead to an increase in positive self-esteem. To achieve this, teachers will have to use their resources and professional abilities to provide on-going support, instead of prematurely concluding who will and will not make it in the learning process.

Education is not about testing and validating students who have the potential to develop and grow into successful people. Rather, it is all about bringing out and nurturing the already-existent potential in each and every student (individual differences noted) regardless of his/her current performance. When teachers do this, they invariably engage in the process of actively building a favorable self-image among students.

In conclusion, I would like to stress that teachers can concretely boost students’ self-esteem by building competence and allowing students opportunities to gain mastery in various areas of academic tasks.

Copyright July 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com

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Have you ever wondered why children love playing? Play is an important part of children’s lives. Without it, we cannot imagine childhood. Adults like to play too. However, as we grow, we have other things to worry about and do not get the time and opportunities to engage in enjoyable play. Nevertheless, deep inside, every one of us long to play.

When I was visiting my friend in South Africa last December (2005), we had feasts after feasts in the homes of his relatives and friends. We had a great eat everywhere we went and enjoyed ourselves to the full with fun talks and games.

During one such visitation, I noticed that the gathering was filled with children – cousins, nephews, nieces, etc. My friends’ two children (Leandra and Matthew) blended in and pretty soon, they were busy playing with the rest of the kids present for the event.

Being a psychologist, I constantly engage in naturalistic observation of human behavior (regardless of time and place). I am constantly on the look out for such an opening to enhance my understanding of human behavior and factors that affect the same. Hence, I took advantage of this situation to learn about children and their motivation to play.

I started with questions in my head. Why do children find play so fascinating? Why will they even sacrifice food and all other things for play? What is in a ‘play’ activity that really drives them so strongly? I looked for answers to these questions by keenly monitoring everything that transpired during the play.

It was obvious that they were having fun. But can ‘fun’ alone explain the motivation to play? Is there anything else? Is there anything else that we have not been able to identify so far? Something more important…? Well, as I was reflecting on all these, one particular incident opened my eyes to a whole new world of understanding the play behavior of children.

Every child that I noticed that day was actively attempting to MASTER a particular task (or enhance a skill). This was evident especially in my friend’s son, Matthew. After coercing other children (he cried the whole time until he was included in the game) to allow him to play with the group, he took his position and started hitting the tennis ball over the net (other kids didn’t accept him initially because he was ‘underage’ for this game). Sadly, he wasn’t really hitting the ball (this is why the older children didn’t want to include him in the first place).

However, once in a while, whenever he did hit the ball, he perked up (it didn’t matter to him if the ball went over the net or not), and gave the biggest smile you can ever imagine. I noticed a great sense of accomplishment and the accompanying contentment, happiness, and excitement in him.

Then I realized what really drives children to play. Children are highly motivated to play because they get to learn and sharpen new skills. By nature, children constantly look for ways to gain MASTERY of themselves and the environment around them. Hence, play serves as a channel that allows children to gain COMPETENCE in myriad of life-skills, vital to the functioning of an individual.

I asked my friend about his son’s desire and motivation to play on our way back home. The only answer he could give at that time was that ‘play is fun and children love to have fun’.

Although I don’t deny this answer, I am now more convinced than ever, that play is fun mainly because children get to gain MASTERY and build COMPETENCE. Thus, children become actively engaged in something that helps them to learn and progress. In essence, children love to learn!

How do all these apply to teaching, particularly affective teaching? Teachers should accept the fact that children are inherently motivated to learn. We should stop battling with students in our attempts to put some ‘sense’ in them and show them the importance of learning. Children like to learn and undergo positive changes from their learning experience.

However, traditional teaching has failed because it did not focus on helping children develop self-efficacy (knowing that “I can do something effectively”). Thousands of children suffer from injured self-esteem, caused invariably by an inability to gain self-confidence through mastery of useful occupation or tasks at school. Unfortunately, competence has been defined as the ability to fit into a uniform mold of studentship and obtaining grades that would qualify one to move to the next level. For many decades, learning at school has been an exercise of ‘dull-content-acquisition’ with limited opportunities for exploration and application.

The school cannot be blamed for this. Schools always lack resources and expertise to accomplish something more than mere production of graduates who are academically similar (copies). However, teachers can make use of this knowledge to effect positive changes in their classrooms. If gaining competence and achieving mastery motivate children’s play behavior, teachers can provide opportunities to build their students’ motivation to learn by applying the same principle to teaching.

When children play, they are highly motivated and pay undivided attention because they get to gain competence and achieve mastery in the process. If teachers arrange learning activities in such a way that students experience instances in which they build competence and mastery of important tasks, they will find new meaning and energy to learn in the classroom. Gaining competence results in positive self-image, which in turn results in higher level of self-esteem. These will eventually lead to higher level of performance at school…only this time, students get to accomplish academic tasks by utilizing their own unique approaches! (this can reduce ‘learned-clones’)

Matthew’s smile constantly reminds me that students can be motivated to learn by allowing them to gain mastery and build competence in the classroom. Highly motivated students learn for fun. But that is not the only reason why they are propelled to learn. The more important reason, I would say, is the ability to see positive changes in one’s behavior and the satisfaction that comes from knowing that one constantly improves.

As humans, we all are born with a high need to gain control of ourselves and our surroundings. Play, allows for the fulfillment of this need. When the learning experiences at school cater to this particular need of students, teaching becomes more meaningful and effective.

Copyright July 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not to dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves.”

How can teachers grow if they don’t engage in continual learning? When teachers stop learning, they become estranged to the experiences of learning. Affective teachers identify with their students’ struggles, challenges, and excitements in the process of learning because they experience all these emotions on a daily basis…because they too, are LEARNERS!

New ideas are the keys to GROWTH! To obtain new ideas, one needs to constantly learn, be it in the classroom or outside of the classroom (exposure to new learning opportunities and environments).

The day a teacher stops learning is the day when he/she starts decreasing in value, expertise, and contribution. Since learning is a dynamic process, it is sustained by constructive and continuous effort. But to understand learning, one has to be a student (who knows better about learning than a learner him/herself?). Thus, a caring teacher strives to be a student first, before he/she attempts to play the role of a teacher! Needless to say, a good student always make an excellent teacher!

Copyright June 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com

I want to thank Mr. Marthonoh Jessen for allowing me to use the quotation by Herbie Hancock posted on his site.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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I find courage and motivation to become a caring teacher from the testimonies and experiences of students (like Shimona!). These students directly influence my approach to teaching. If they testify to the fact that having fun while learning is a possibility, then I am convinced that affective teaching is the answer to the many questions that teachers have always had about pedagogical ineffectiveness. My question to all teachers is: ARE WE WILLING TO GIVE OURSELVES A CHANCE TO LEARN and CHANGE? The following is a testimony of a student posted on her blog. Thank you Shimona!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Morning Ekspress – ME move U!

Social Psyc class is so fun…
Not only do we have the funniest teacher in the department teaching it, there’s always room for lotsa self-reflection, and we even got to create our own product and ad for it yesterday as a part of learning about persuasion.

Storyboard for a Video Clip (Advertisement)

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Fatherhood is teaching me many things; things that are beneficial both at home and in the classroom. For example, when my son Michael (who is now 9 months ‘young’) was younger, I used to long for him to start crawling. I wanted him to start exploring things around him and be more mobile. After many months of struggle and hard work, he has finally started to crawl. This began just last week. But now that he crawls, I realize that there are many hazards that he is exposed to and I do not necessarily have the time to be with him ALL of the time to ensure his safety. Now that he has started crawling, I am tempted to tell him, “Michael, why don’t you slow down and try not to move around so much!!!???” But when I reflect on my thoughts, I realize the danger in restricting Michael from his new-found passion and joy – crawling.

Children like to explore and learn (very informally) from everything and everyone around them. We have no choice but to admit that this is the kind of learning that is most effective and natural to humans. However, as children grow, adults introduce many restrictions that eventually serve to discourage and de-motivate the tendency and longing (of the child) to explore and learn about things around them. The moment a child steps out of his/her home, more restrictions are imposed on him/her by the society, the school, the church, friends, etc. Soon, the child senses that there is no point in trying to feed his/her curious mind with food from his/her own learning experiences.

As a parent, I have decided that I will NOT restrict my son from obtaining a wealth of experiences from his surroundings. If I restrict him (especially during his childhood), where and when else will he get a chance to learn and grow from the experiences that he’s having now? I can’t control the society, the school, the church, his friends, etc., but I can control myself and allow him this great and important opportunity to interact freely with his surroundings to gain mastery over them. Michael will have to face many restrictions later on in his life. This can be both positive and negative. But until then, he will be allowed to be himself (a baby exploring and enjoying a ‘new’ world)!

In the classroom, caring teachers allow students to be themselves. Caring teachers are aware of the fact that too much of restrictions hamper learning significantly. When I was in the elementary school, my teachers dictated and imposed a variety of ‘acceptable behaviors’ as requirements to adhere. Basically, we were asked to sit quietly and do nothing apart from the things teachers told us to do. Sadly, most of the ‘acceptable behaviors’ were not acceptable to us, the students. They simply crushed us into dullness, injured our creativity, and shrunk our self-esteem. I bet all my classmates were silently crying and pleading for freedom to explore and learn for themselves. I did too. So many things remained a mystery to us because our teachers restricted us from exercising our natural inclination to search for knowledge through simple, yet concrete experiences in classroom.

Teachers wonder why students lack the zest to learn. But if they really examine their teaching approaches and reflect on their attitude toward teaching-learning processes in the classroom, they will realize that they are the number one cause for the inception and perpetuation of a dreadful phenomenon called ‘de-motivation in students’. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist and his complex action plans to solve this problem. All that teachers need to do is to let students be themselves.

Copyright June 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Teachers are the only ones who get paid for learning.

I learn from my students every single day. If a teacher does not learn from his/her students, then there is something wrong!

Teaching is an interactional process and it affects students and teachers alike. Everyone involved in the process of teaching and learning benefit equally.

Copyright June 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Have you ever imagined wanting to become a millionaire in a matter of a few weeks? I bet you did. All of us, at some point in life, fantasize becoming very wealthy in a short period of time. We might have different reasons for doing so, but the fact remains, all humans possess a natural tendency to obtain successes as quickly as they can. We simply can’t wait.

In 1998, my friend and I embarked on a mission (I would rather call it a ‘mission impossible’). We wanted to become millionaires by holding huge seminar on ‘personal-development’ and related topics. Our aim was to have at least 10,000 people per seminar session, and we planned on having a few such seminar. We were just completing our Bachelor’s degree at that time. We thought that the world would recognize us as experts and authorities in the field of ‘personal development’ and support us by getting excited about what we have to offer them. In short, we were overwhelmed by our intentions to make lots of money and were misguided into believing that this was a sure success plan.

The time came to implement our action plan. To our surprise, we failed miserably. We ended up conducting NO seminar at all. It finally dawned on us that wanting to become wealthy isn’t a matter of a few weeks effort and planning (especially to become wealthy from scratch, without having any money or properties passed down to us from our fathers and forefathers). From this experience, I learned a vital lesson, the hard way (we did lose lots of money because we had invested a lot in preparation for the seminars): Shortsightedness Cripples Our Vision and Obstructs the Attainment of True Success!

How does this experience relate to teaching? Well, most teachers get frustrated (rather quickly) with students (especially the ones who are not performing so well) and admit defeat prematurely. They lose motivation to provide contructive intervention to these students because in their minds, “It doesn’t matter anyway…it won’t make a difference if I do this or that to help to improve the student.” A sense of hopelessness is directly or indirectly communicated with students and this serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the end, students who do poorly continue in that state because they are expected to do so.

Social psychology calls this the ‘stereotype threat’. When students become aware of a negative stereotype that teachers hold of themselves, they will be unfavorably/negatively affected by this thought. Their performance worsens. All doors for improvement are closed when a teacher communicates shortsighted viewpoints about students in the classroom.

Instead, a caring teacher focuses on the long term outcomes and gains of educational and psychological interventions administered in the classroom. He/she is farsighted and knows that students, when given the chance, support, and encouragement, can improve and excel in all areas of life. Some students take more time than others in the achievement of success. However, a good teacher is fully aware about the importance of communicating ‘farsighted-messages’ (messages of hope and limitless possibilities) with students. By doing so, a caring teacher taps into the hidden resources of students’ potential and maximize their abilities and accomplishments. Farsightedness is a mental attitude that effective teachers possess and it is reflected through their daily behavior, thoughts, and words toward students.

Teachers who look for quick-fixes and short-term gains in the classroom communicate a sense of hopelessness to students. However, teachers who look for possibilities and long-terms gains communicate a sense of hopefulness and accomplish a greater deal as educators! From my experience in teaching, I can testify to the fact that students love teachers who are farsighted, because these teachers are perceived to be understanding, practical, generous, and optimistic.

Copyright June 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]I am sure that we have heard the story about Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody time and again, at different occasions. We laugh and enjoy the humorous word play presented ingeniously in the story everytime we hear it. Let me just refresh your minds of the same story at this juncture.

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done, and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.

I bet you laughed reading the story yet another time. However, the application of this story to the realities of the school system is startling. I would imagine that Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody represent different social catalysts responsible for the establishment and sustenance of the school system. Teachers, parents, school administrators, and the society, all know for fact that the most important job to be done is to empower and nurture individual students to discover and maximize their potential to become constructive contributors to life on earth. However, experiences like anger, guilt, regret, and blame constantly influence educational scenarios in many societies. In the case of Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody, at least they knew what their job was. Sadly, teachers, parents, administrators, and the society are not even aware of their job (in the first place) to be able to move on to the next level of action. As such, the school system has been “existent” for many decades, but have always failed to “live”.

The Existence of a school connotes a desire of its members to survive (in which case, the quality of the survival is not as important as the survival itself), while a school that is Living does not merely survive but also strives to make a genuine difference in all of its members! As far as I see it, the school and every member involved in the functioning therein are responsible for one thing and one thing alone…

To establish a caring and passionate ‘working-relationship’ with students so that the teaching-learning experiences at school become meaningful and personal – leading to increased assimilation of what is taught – useful for the present as well as the future. Of course this is not accomplished by some magic tricks. It takes a lot of time, effort, intelligent thinking and planning, and commitment to ensure this outcome.

Nevertheless, the possibility or impossibility of the above mentioned goals are significantly dependent on how well the four main catalysts of the school system work toward (collaboratively) making this a reality. Instead of ‘passing the baton without running the race,’ (or engaging in social loafing) – teachers, parents, school administrators, and the society might want to re-consider and accept the crucial responsibilities placed in their hands to effect positive changes in the lives of students who would someday, become the future. Let us not forget that we care for our students because someday soon, they too will CARE for us! (now you know why many parents end up in old-folk-homes instead of cherishing the remaining days of their lives with children and grandchildren???)

Copyright June 2006 by Dr. Edward Roy Krishnan, www.affectiveteaching.com

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