This Valentine’s week, GAMECHANGER Tutoring Connection wants you to fall in love…with learning. Students who love to learn tend to engage in classroom discussions, dive into their schoolwork, and thrive from positive feedback from peers, teachers, and parents. Students who fall in love with learning find wonder in most tasks and challenges. And, students who fall in love with learning develop a commitment to lifelong learning and live happier, more fulfilling lives.
Here are 5 reasons that GAMECHANGER Tutoring Connection encourages students to fall in love with learning.
- Learning strengthens communication skills. Learning makes students more interesting people and makes them better communicators. Learners can lead conversations and dive into many different topics. Students with strong communication skills learn to express ideas clearly and concisely. They are more effective at presenting their ideas and making persuasive arguments. Better communicators have more meaningful interactions with others in school, their personal lives, and beyond. Better communicators have a deeper understanding of situations around them. However, developing strong communication skills requires learning to understand perspectives, learning to respond to information presented, and learning to compromise.
- Learning strengthens critical thinking skills. Encouraging students to think critically means that they must learn to ask questions – constantly. Uncovering the “who, what, where, when, why, and how” helps students better understand issues, concepts, and relationships. The ability to dig deeper, to analyze information, makes the world a more understandable place. Becoming a critical thinker means students are curious about everything they encounter. This invokes a purely optimistic sense of wonder and a willingness to embrace the unknown.
- Learning makes students more passionate about life. When students feel an unbridled sense of wonder about the world, they become more passionate about life. In many ways, this passion is seen in young children, as they embrace every new experience. Playing, dreaming, imagining, discovering, and exploring are all ways for students to learn in and out of the classroom. Whether students are digging for treasures in their backyards, imagining that they are Aaron Judge, Montana Tucker, or Taylor Swift, or playing soccer, baseball, or football with friends, they are experiencing, learning new things, developing passions. The challenge is to continue to foster this passion in the classroom as students study subjects from history to science that should be awe-inspiring. As students develop an interest in biological sciences, constitutional history, or the stories of Toni Morrison, the hope is that they will become more passionate about life.
- Learning helps students discover hidden talents. Did your students know that they were a good math student before they took algebra? Did they realize that they could analyze the sonnets of Shakespeare and write a story about Hamlet making a different decision, changing the course of his life? If students are regularly exposed to new ideas, new topics, new experiences, they will figure out what motivates them and what they enjoy learning. Therefore, the more students learn, the more opportunities they have to uncover hidden talents.
- Learning connects students to confidence. The more students know, the more empowered they become. Learning, understanding the world around them and being able to decipher facts from fake news, makes students more confident. As students become more confident, learning will become easier for them, and they will become more passionate about learning. Students who are strong learners typically have higher levels of self-esteem. When students are more confident, they are willing to take chances and challenge themselves. This helps students develop an open mind and become more resilient. If students learn new skills, they will take on new tasks, they will feel more confident.
So this Valentine’s Day, encourage your students to develop a love of learning. As they open doors to new topics and experiences, they will become more confident, empowered people with a greater passion for life and a greater understanding of the world around them.
