Asking the right questions

Had some lapses in blog posts the past 2 weeks and is jumping straight in here. Lots of things happened and I will probably split my postings to capture some of these.

Last week, a colleague came forward for help in as she had some problems in getting the pupils in her class to submit their files. Only 3 out of the 19 pupils had submitted their files after repeated reminders/warnings. I was invited to address the class for 10 min with the hope of talking some sense in them to do the right things.

10 min of communication to alter a set of ill-formed habit. I love the challenge. The tough part is to really decide what needs to be communicated in the short amount of time. What do I tell the pupils? What questions shall I ask to arrive at the desired effect? I am certain the class would have heard all sorts of reprimanding reminders from their different teachers to do their work. Adding on to this numbed message will not serve any good. I need to create more meaning to effect a sense of urgency.

When I went to the class towards the end of their lesson, I deliberated my message to the pupils. After a brief note of mentioning the importance of good work habits and its relation to their hope of going to the polytechnics, I told the class that I will give a call to all their parents, and I will only have 2 kinds of messages to communicate over the phone.

The first kind is that I will sing praises to their parents for their responsibility in submitting their work. The second is that I will call the parents to meet me for the coming PTM for their poor work attitude... The pupils will decide exactly what will be communicated over the phone. The choice is strictly theirs. I saw from their eyes then that they got the message loud and clear.

2 days after the event, 13 pupils submitted their work, more than 4X the orginal number. Although the situation was not perfectly resolved, I was very glad that it got a lot better. It will be an emotional boost to the 13 pupils when I finished calling all their parents to affirm their work. I am quite certain most have never received such validation.