All or nothing is not the only option.

I’m every aspect I witness people feeling like they either have to go full force or they can’t do anything.

You hear it the most when it comes to health and fitness. Suzy is doing this juice cleanse for 3 weeks and starting to workout 5-6 days a week after eating the kitchen sink and barely hitting 2,000 steps a day.

or.

Jessica started at the same spot. Eating the kitchen sink has shifted to prioritizing one meal having vegetables and reducing her treats to only 3 cookies instead of 5. She also is going to try and get 5,000 steps a day and work out 2 days a week.

who do you thinks going to burn out?

I see this in schools and work as well.

Students do this. Teachers do this. Employees do this.

Jack, a student, completes nearly no assignments. He’s passive in class and chooses not to do activities. Then he realized midterm reports are going to go out so he grinds out 15 missing assignments, 2 projects and 1 retake test.

then he says he hates school.

yeah. I would hate school too If I had that much work to make up.

School is not designed for every person to be successful. It’s rigid, it’s mundane, and yes it can be very tedious, boring and the rules don’t always make sense.

So what can we do to take Jack from an all or nothing student to a better managed and consistent worker?

For One, it starts with the teacher. I think about what’s truly valuable and what amount of work gives them enough practice and feedback and doesn’t cross the busy work line.

I also look into the WHY behind the lesson. Finding a way to communicate the life skill they are using when completing activities.

Some of those lessons are:

-Organization

-detail oriented: following the instructions, even the minute steps

-Attunement: how well can he respond instead of react

-Articulation: can he coherently speak about what he is doing or solving. - discussion and collaboration: can he professionally work with classmates and interact with adults in a productive and respectful manner

When I have a better understanding of why I am doing it.

When I set the intention for purposeful learning experiences, my students feel that and naturally they begin to work a little more.

Maybe Jack works really well with only one student So, to begin, why not let him work with him. Get him moving, momentum and then slowly pull out that student for every occurrence and drop in others he can sort of work with.

Its the long game. If you can give small wins, small reasons that are beyond the subject that will relate to Jack, you’ll see he engages not because he wants to learn math. But because he can see how it’ll relate to his life. when he sees how he is learning skills bigger than the classroom, the intention is set.

it is a lot of work. But don’t we want to raise the next generation to not go through the motions, but to be strong? Intentional? Hard working?

I know I do.