This coaching tip continues our 8 part series on simple strategies for maximizing your student’s ability to learn. These tips come from a lecture by Debra Bell. The second simple strategy is probably already something you’re doing: teach something the student has interest in.
It’s no surprise that when the student is interested in what they’re learning, they pay better attention, and are more likely to retain information. Most teens are eager to drive, and so it’s a good chance they’re already interested in driver education. So what do you do if your teen is not eager to drive, or maybe nervous or scared? How do you get them interested in driver education? It’s easier than you think. If your teen does not seem interested in learning to drive, try telling them about your own driver education. Make it a story, and tell them as much as you can remember about it. This does a couple things that will help get them interested, but here’s the biggest one. It paints a picture in their mind of an experience that they themselves have not had, but is within reach; they’re on the cusp of their own driver education. Teens are on the edge of growing up, and just telling them about your own driver education reminds them in a subtle way that this is another milestone toward adulthood, and chances are that will get them interested.
Watch this video to see Patrick Barrett, the Driver Education Guru, talk more about how learning is easier when the teen is interested.