The best way to teach — whether as an educator, employer, or parent — is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.
Mentorship is a foundational stepping stone for any development, be it in a student pursuing school education or an adult entering a new company as an intern ready to explore new horizons. How a person takes upon this responsibility to rear an individual’s skills to be culturally, and morally appropriate is entirely upto them. They are tasked with choosing several methodologies, two of which would be to weigh their disciples positives and negatives and reward them accordingly, and the other would be to ignore the negatives and focus on their positives and push them to keep improving those positive qualities. Depending on who is asked, they would prefer one over the other but I firmly stand in my opinion that negative actions should not go unaddressed and unpunished. The way a singly minor action can influence the life of a disciple is one any superior should be well aware of and it is in the hands of the educator, employer, and parent to make sure to mitigate this to the best of their capabilities.
The ignorance of deleterious behavior can be detrimental to the career of any talented professional. Simply because harboring habits that develop early on were never managed are eradicated when they had the chance. Several brilliant students, doctors, architects are subject to drug abuse and addctions without which they claim their expertise is inhibited. Though I do not intend to contend that claim, it is apparent through observation that such a situation could have been managed had their superiors treasured their expertise and talent less and addressed the underlying damages this ensues in a person. Once an individual’s identity shapes itself in this form it can be impossible to separate the talented professional from their occupational identity. The situations where this is a prevailing notion is unnerving, from theatre performers who regularly perform while high to journalists who get regularly drunk to cope with their surroundings. Ignorance is the beginning of their insidious behaviors.
Furthermore, if say one mentor were to take it upon themselves to address and fix an athlete or professional from such deviating activities, how would they go about it? They would have to acknowledge it for sure. Otherwise, how would anyone be able to tell right from wrong? Facing the truth and acquiring discipline to bring about better behavior is integral to properly guiding or teaching in the best possible way. A well scoring bully in school would make it a regular habit to pick on his peers should he be only praised for his outstanding performance in class. He wouldn’t truly be outstanding as the only thing holding him back would be a little constructive criticism on how he treats the people around him. With a little guidance and less praising to the point of making him pompous, the school would acquire a humble student, one who could be a blessing in disguise for the development of many others.
This consideration in no way means to entertain the exclusive address of misbehavior and neglect of positive actions. That can most often lead to abuse and long persisting trauma in the junior. It is imperative that the mentor strike the perfect balance between the two and find where their priority lies. Many develop performers through harsh treatment and this can be considered okay as long as it is not damaging to the juniors personalities or their integrity or dignity. Musicians tend to face intense training where the line is blurred between training and abuse and I would like to clearly condemn such behavior.
What the prompt intends to suggest I recognise is the implementation of positive reinforcement. While this is a studied and tried and tested concept for training and teaching we must not blindly develop on it. Risking to instead develop pompous overconfident individuals that are too full of themselves to see how much better they can be. It would be cause to a missed opportunity at a prodigy and a loss not many would know they are missing out on. In its own space it is truly beneficial to address and praise and laud the positive actions of a student, but it is even more important to not snuff out the light of enthusiasm and replace it with an everlasting overconfidence. In the end what marks a truly remarkable mentorship is that which carries on. And if the training is not perfect and is passed down, it may create a legacy of fallacious complacent individuals, and that will be the mark of the worst way to teach anything.
Time: 30 mins
Word count: 757
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