Knowing when to push

I think as teachers we have to walk a fine line between motivating and pushing. It is definitely our responsibility to motivate our students. Unless we are teaching reading, all of our students should be able to read a textbook to give them they same informations that we can provide.

Our value add is our enthusiasm, our love for our subject areas, and our desire to share that love and enthusiasm with others.

But while we try to get our students learn, we also need to be on a question to learn our students. Each student is different. Each will come with their own issues, family life and baggage. Some students need us to be empathetic, while others need us to push them to accomplish more. We have the tricky job of knowing at each opportunity which student is which.

Case in point. I gave my last exam of the semester last night. One student ran in late straight from another exam. It took her a little bit of time to settle down and start my exam. After a little while (while most of the other students who came on time were still in the middle of their exams) she hands me her exam. I took one look at and saw that it wasnt even half filled in.

I asked her what she was doing. She told me her mind was blank and that she couldnt do anymore. From looking at what she already had been able to do on the exam and from seeing what she knew in class, I KNEW she could do more. I pointed out some of the problems that I knew she would get right and I made her finsih her exam. I didnt accept her giving up on me.

Well, I graded her exam and in the end she got an "A". I posted all the grades online last night and this morning she sent me the following email


OH MY GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING ME STAY IN CLASS AND FINISHING THE TEST. YOU ARE THE GREATEST... YOU ENCOURAGE ME TO TRY WHEN I WANNA GIVE UP. I CANT BELIEVE I GOT A GOOD GRADE AND ALL BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IN YOUR STUDENTS AND IT MOTIVATES US TO THE BEST WE CAN. THANK YOU A GREAT DEAL, I DONT KNOW WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE THIS SEMESTER WITHOUT A GREAT TEACHER LIKE YOU...THANK YOU FOR ALWAYS BELIEVING IN YOUR STUDENTS.

This was an amazing success story that made me feel really good. But my point above stands. I pushed in this cased because I was able to judge that in this situation it made the most sense to push. I knew that this particular student needed a little push. There are others in the class that had I pushed the same way it could have just upset or even worse just broken them. It would have definitely put them in a position where they would have hated my class, my subject, and maybe even learning.

Sometimes we get caught up in being all we can be for our students that we forget about what our students really need us to be