When we have a problem, we may get many suggestions by the people around us.
Our problem becomes bigger problem when we get so frustrated after trying out those suggestions with numerous failures.
Our problem is not their problem so their suggestions may work for different situations but it may not work for us.
Handling a class
I have been teaching for more than 19 years. I have handled all sorts of classes in the past.
The truth is what worked in the past may no longer today.
Just to state an example to illustrate my point.
It is not the first time that I am teaching a low progress graduating class.
Usually these students would come from broken families with complicated background.
In the past, I was able to win over the hearts of students simply by providing biscuits for their hungry stomachs since most of them came to school without breakfast due to home situation.
When they were tired, I was able to give some sweets to keep them motivated.
My ex-students, who are adults now, appreciated all these gestures as these were little things that they were not getting from their broken homes.
I tried to shower my care for them as their teacher to lead them to a better future.
I am teaching another low progress class this year with lots of complicated families again.
I tried sweets and food but these things did not work effectively.
With the change of generations, their needs become very different.
I have to change accordingly to suit their needs so I am not able to depend on past experience or advice since each class is unique and there is never a solution for all problems.
After I completed two topics, they probably would not revise on their own to reinforce the concepts that they had learnt.
I booked the school computer lab and simply assigned online interactive questions where they can get immediate feedback and learn on their own using computer.
I gave my permission for them to play their own online games when they were able to complete what I had assigned to them.
This worked like magic and most of them were very motivated to complete the online interactive questions because of the benefit after completing them.
My usual lessons were usually a challenge but the online lesson was able to engage them effectively.
Since there were also relationship problems, they were able to stay united while playing their online multiplayer games so it was able to improve and solve some of the class bonding problem.
Nevertheless, I had to constantly walk around to ensure that they did not go to websites that are forbidden.
This was really out of my comfort zone but I can see the benefit as a facilitator rather than a teacher.
I do see why the current education system encourages educators to move away from passive frontal teaching to active facilitation of learning.
I guess the current generation needs new innovative methods to handle them.
Handling our children
There are always some elderly parents who would tell us how to handle our children in a certain way as they used it for their children with great success.
Their way may not work for our children as every child is different so we need to explore ideas and adapt those ideas for our own children.
We can never use the methods of our parents to handle the present generation of kids.
Most of the children are also more knowledgeable due to internet. We did not know as much as them when we were at their age.
They know their rights and they can even consider us as child abusers when they do not like what we do.
We should never simply listen to one successful parent and think their ideas can work for our own children.
We must understand the characteristics of our own children and adapt the ideas to make them work.
One size does not fit all so adaptation of ideas and use those that are suitable would bring great benefits.
Both my children are very different.
The method that works for my younger son would not work for my older son.
Parenthood is a process of exploration and discovery to find suitable approaches to nurture our children mentally and physically.
Business ideas
We often open our eyes widely when we hear successful stories from successful businessmen.
Their confidence and advice often lead us to attempt their ideas into our situation.
We may face great failures and disappointments when our fat hope of success becomes a great chain of debts.
The truth is ideas that worked last year may not work this year.
The idea used last month or last week that others gained success may not work today.
With the global economy changes, we cannot predict the changes as fast as we want to.
Just like my recent article about industry 4.0 where everything can be customised and everything can be linked with great efficiency.
We can adapt and adopt useful ideas to redesign those ideas into our situation to find possible success.
No one can predict and give a guide book of success as those guide books often do not help but give the author a fat wallet.
We have to formulate our own plan regardless of our work or business to innovate and redesign ideas to make them fit into our situation more seamlessly.
Even after doing all these, failures are still around the corner when we miss a certain crucial consideration.
We cannot depend on one advice but we must evaluate and put different ideas together like a puzzle to form our own solution and strategic plan.
In conclusion
This article is not to tell you what to do but it is to bring the awareness of the need to adapt ideas rather than to listen and use them passively.
On our platform, we can often hear how one becomes so successful but when we try on our own, we just have great disappointment.
Regardless of our children, our business, our job or other areas, there may be many ideas but these ideas can only be reference.
It is therefore good to always put a disclaimer to our articles so that we ensure our readers that our ideas in our articles need their own evaluation.
Disclaimer: This is my personal reflection and I am not in any position to instruct anyone what they should do. I am not responsible for any action taken as a result of this post. My post can only be a reference for your further research and growth. By reading this post, you acknowledge and accept that. All images and pictures were taken from google images that are free from copyright under labelled for reuse.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://fun2learn.vornix.blog/2019/02/02/adaptation-of-ideas/