Have you ever noticed that when you tell children DON’T they DO?

I was thinking about this yesterday when I was talking with a group of teachers about children’s learning. Some of them find it frustrating that their ‘don’t rules are ignored but some make good use of what they’ve noticed by flipping the whole thing around – and they get great results.

Here’s an example to show you what I mean.

When they want young children to make use of a planning sheet to aid their writing, instead of saying. “Use the planning sheet.” (resulting in most of the children not using it) they say, “Now, you don’t  have to use the planning sheet. It’s just there to help you if you if you need it but you don’t have to use it at all if you don’t want to – it’s up to you.” (resulting in everyone using the planning sheet effectively)

So I’m going to suggest that you don’t have to use this ‘don’t idea’ right now to get great results like this – it’s up to you!

And when you find some great ways to use it, you don’t have to share them with everyone in the comment section below either – just a thought!  ;-))