“I would give more praise” – Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
There are two camps of thought about how you go about getting the best out of children; put simply the carrot or stick approach. If you look back at Victorian times the stick would almost certainly have been the option of choice and Dickens’ stories give us a wonderful, though often rather bleak, insight into that society. In truth, I think the stick has prevailed for too long but there is a change now where the focus on encouragement is having a transformative effect on children as they push themselves to succeed because of the belief that is being instilled in them rather than achieving purely because they had to or because they were driven to do what was expected of them.
For this chapter I have chosen to quote one of Queen Victoria’s most trusted advisers and Prime Minister, Arthur Wellesley, a person who was himself very aware that sometimes there could be a better approach to getting the best out of his soldiers, though perhaps hindered by attitudes of the age to carry through on what he himself recognised.
When inspecting a Man of War ship, Wellington commented “I see much shining metal but few shining faces.” It was an impressive ship to inspect and the efforts of the crew in ensuring that it was as smart as possible for their Commander-in-Chief and ready for war is beyond doubt but it is an observation that is nevertheless a damning indictment on the way in which the outcome had been achieved. All too often we can allow ourselves to be impressed by the appearance of something but we need to be prepared to look beyond the façade to see what lies beneath. When coming to inspect the ship, far more important to Wellington was how the crew of the ship presented themselves and rather than finding them upbeat and full of self-belief and optimistic for success, he encountered a crew that was resigned to war, perhaps having little hope that they would return from the campaign and certainly not displaying enthusiasm or confidence in themselves or in what they were heading out to do. One wonders if this was one of those moments that later led Wellington to reflect on his life and to conclude that if he could do things again, he would “give more praise.”
There is a certain irony to the fact that Wellington’s great counterpart in history, Napoleon Bonaparte, described himself as “a dealer in hope.” Napoleon’s ability to inspire and galvanise his men is well documented and the return from exile in Corsica to then rally support from the nation of France and build the army that he took to Waterloo is testament to the extraordinary charisma of one of the nineteenth century’s most significant characters. Napoleon could instil in people an extraordinary self-belief and it is something that I have no doubt Wellington both feared and admired because it was that self-belief that had enabled France to become the power it had under Napoleon.
I have found during my time in education, both as a child and as a teacher, that the power of encouragement is second to none. If a teacher conveys to a child the belief that they can achieve whatever they set their mind to, I have yet to see a child that has not performed better because of the belief that has been shown in them.
One of my strongest recommendations to any parent when looking for a school for their child is to look at their behaviour management and rewards policies. It was whilst I was at a school fairly early in my teaching career that I came to fully appreciate just how important these policies were to establishing the culture of a school. When I arrived there the school had a system of Golds and Blacks. These were the school colours so it is important not to draw any other inferences from the colours used, though it is to be acknowledged that Golds were given out for positive achievements and Blacks for misdemeanours. The new Deputy Head sought to immediately address this approach to rewards and sanctions and in one simple action did away with Blacks. It was transformative. There were of course a great many sceptics amongst the teaching staff who immediately questioned what was to be done if they couldn’t issue a sanction. In truth, there was more to it and sanctions did remain of a sort but the focus now was not on what the pupils did wrong but on what they did well. If they did something well, they still got a Gold and if they did something they shouldn’t, the teacher now had to address it in a way that didn’t simply fob off the responsibility for tackling an incident to someone else. This in turn meant that because the teacher was taking more ownership for the behaviour and effort of the pupils in the classroom and around school, they became more invested in the pupils themselves and in the relationships that they built with them. In short, the teachers became better teachers and the pupils developed better relationships with the teachers which encouraged them to become better pupils.
The relationships between the teachers and the pupils is so crucial to a school’s success and the positive relationships come from always looking for the best in an individual and in turn instilling in them the confidence to believe that anything is achievable.
Sometimes it is easier to be critical of someone else than to find positives in what they have done. I am very mindful myself, when marking a history essay, that it is very easy to tear an essay apart and find fault with it but the outcome of that approach is rarely that it inspires the pupil to do better next time. Instead, it creates doubt and anxiety that they simply can’t do the subject, that however hard they try they will never be able to do well. I am not saying that constructive criticism is not to be offered but it is more important in a poor piece of work to still identify something that is a positive accomplishment. That is when the pupil will understand that they are not going to be written off and that their teacher can see in them something that others perhaps have not yet recognised and that is what will galvanise and encourage them to do better with their next effort. That will be true in any aspect of school life.
Whilst I was a Housemaster of a boarding house, the success of the House came down entirely to self-belief. We were a smaller House than some of the others and yet we built up a fearsome reputation because the message to the boys was always that they could win and it was a message permeated down from me to the House Prefects all the way down to the younger boys and just became a part of the culture. I’ll be honest here and say that there were times in some competitions that I didn’t think we had the remotest chance of winning but I would never say that and so it just didn’t enter the minds of the boys. That is not to say we didn’t have our fair share of disappointments and we certainly didn’t win everything but we always thought we could and that was what made them so successful. As their Housemaster I couldn’t have been more proud of them.
In the scenario I described above it is perhaps easier to encourage and promote self-belief when you have a group that have it as part of their culture but it can take time to get there in the first place and therefore it is always important for schools to remember that this is something at which they have to work. If they allow themselves to become discouraged it becomes harder to be an encourager and motivator and that is something parents need to look at very carefully when walking around a school. It is difficult sometimes to identify when this has befallen a school but I suspect you will detect a vibe and that should not be dismissed. It really is important to try and look in on lessons to see if the teacher is being critical of the pupils or encouraging them to rethink their approach – seeing how a teacher responds to a child getting an answer wrong is one of the very best ways of gauging just how good that school will be at getting the best out of your child. Walking into a classroom where all the children want to answer a question also tells you that these are pupils who feel confident offering their ideas because they are going to be encouraged whether they get the answer right or wrong. The school has successfully created a culture where it is okay to fail because the pupils know that this is how they will also learn and next time they will get the answer right. Nelson Mandela summed this state of mind perfectly when he famously said, “I never lose. I win or I learn.”
In every school I have worked in since, I have been fortunate enough to be in a leadership role where I could take responsibility for the behaviour and rewards policies. In every instance I have scrapped the demerits system of that school to ensure that the teachers take responsibility for their classes and recognise the importance of developing the relationships with their pupils and building their confidence and self-esteem through positive reinforcement and encouragement rather than resorting to chastisement. I will always take this approach and I would suggest that as a parent you always ask if the school takes this stance and if not, why not?
Wellington remains one of Britain’s greatest military leaders. When he came to the conclusion that he should have given more praise, it is something of which we should take heed. Look for schools where it is a praise first culture. You don’t want your son or daughter to be told what they can’t do, you need them to be encouraged to believe they can achieve whatever they put their mind to.
