Every time I hand out worksheets and assign homework to my students, I get this reaction from them: “Why so much, are you trying to kill me?”
When I correct mistakes, some students cannot take the blow to their ego and shift the blame onto other things – anything but themselves.
To these students, I am probably an evil person who delights in making them suffer. It’s okay, because I know what I’m doing. Recently, I read the book “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. In this book, there’s a character whose motivations are quite “grey”, in that he’s quite cruel to the main character, but his reasons for doing it are noble. He justified his actions this way: “I break them, so that when they put the pieces back together, they are better people.” Now I’m not quite that extreme, but I understand what he means.
I “torture” my students to make them into the people they have to be, so that they can do what they have to do – whether it’s scoring 6 points for O Levels, getting into a school of their choice or whatever goals they have set for themselves. I don’t do it because I enjoy making their lives difficult. I do it because I know that the ultimate goals outweigh whatever unpleasantness they (and I) have to go through.
It’s just a matter of taking the long-term view and seeing the big picture.
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