by Betty Adkins
“Always ask yourself: “What will happen if I say nothing?”
― Kamand Kojouri
You might be thinking, “Hmm, Betty. How does glue relate to staying quiet? I simply don’t get it!”
For me, learning to focus on the process – not the product or skill – was challenging at times. It helped me to think about “the process” as the glue that supports development. Staying quiet, and allowing a child to process non-verbal cues builds the neural pathways we want to strengthen.
This is why I don’t appreciate the prompting sequences often used in schools. Many educators see verbal prompting as unintrusive. But if a child becomes dependent on verbal prompts, we have unwittingly created a child who cannot act without hearing a prompt.
By choosing the words we do use carefully, and pausing to allow a child time to think, we encourage them to learn on their own. We strengthen the neural pathways for independent problem-solving. Our silence, or our carefully chosen words, followed by sufficient wait-time becomes the glue that supports the process of thinking and decision making.
Isn’t that our goal?
