How can I engage my high school student if she is a reluctant learner?
Reluctant learners are everywhere. Sometimes people think only children who come from poverty or low-income backgrounds are reluctant learners. Most of the time a reluctant learner does not feel they are actively involved, interested or engaged in the material. If your child is a reluctant learner, it does not mean that they are not bright, or that your child is lazy. And we should never use words like "you're lazy", "you just don't like it" with reluctant learners. It usually means that the reluctant learner does not feel that there is an immediate reward in learning this material. So I want to make the material engaging for the reluctant learner. I want to make it so there's an immediate pay-off. Sometimes we do things that we don't like, but we may nevertheless do them for the immediate reward. Bribery has never hurt anyone. We go to our jobs because we want our paychecks. We do other things because we know that there's a monetary pay-off or some type of reward. A lot of times for the reluctant learner, we want to associate learning with something that they like. Does this have to mean that it has to be monetary? No. It might be extra time on the television, it might be extra time with a friend, it might be buying a new book. It may be something that the reluctant learner can immediately tap into for their reward.
