{"id":6290,"date":"2011-11-09T15:18:25","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T20:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=6290"},"modified":"2011-11-09T15:18:25","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T20:18:25","slug":"a-hypothetical-question-about-an-acorn-that-fell-not-far-from-its-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2011\/11\/09\/a-hypothetical-question-about-an-acorn-that-fell-not-far-from-its-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"A hypothetical question about an acorn that fell not far from its tree"},"content":{"rendered":"

S<\/span>o let’s imagine a hypothetical boy. He’s plenty bright, and gets reasonable marks in school. He’s a little scatterbrained, though, and a bit of a daydreamer. It’s quite possible that he has the same inability of his hypothetical mother to hold a thought in his head, except for when he’s exhibiting her other hypothetical tendency to obsess on things.<\/p>\n

So our boy has just brought home his report card, which shows he’s doing well academically, but has for the first time been graded with a couple of “needs improvement” in some behavioural categories: responsibility and self-regulation. The hypothetical teacher has made observations along the lines of “difficulty assuming responsibility for and managing his own behaviour” and “he is encouraged to approach learning with a positive attitude” and “requires some reminders to fulfill classroom responsibilities and commitments.”<\/p>\n

If he was having (hypothetical) trouble with academics, I would know what to do. Devote more time to study, help him, even hire a tutor. But what do you do with a child who can do the work, but only works hard enough to do the bare minimum required? How do you motivate a child to govern his own behaviour when you have to stand over him and nag to make sure the bare minimum gets done? And how the heck do you correct a behavioural problem that you yourself suffered through most of your own (hypothetical) academic career? <\/p>\n

The hypothetical teacher and I will meet to discuss, but I’m thinking this problem may be inherent to a lot of boys. How do you work on focus and motivation and initiative? When learning comes easy, how do you get kids to put in more than the minimum effort required? <\/p>\n

Any tips from the trenches on this one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So let’s imagine a hypothetical boy. He’s plenty bright, and gets reasonable marks in school. He’s a little scatterbrained, though, and a bit of a daydreamer. It’s quite possible that he has the same inability of his hypothetical mother to hold a thought in his head, except for when he’s exhibiting her other hypothetical tendency … Continue reading “A hypothetical question about an acorn that fell not far from its tree”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mothering-without-a-licence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6291,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions\/6291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}