When I started teaching, I realized early on that I was very good at getting kids to break bad habits. Really good! But sadly, things didn’t get better, and often they got worse. And I just couldn’t figure out why. Then it occurred to me. You can’t just break a bad habit. You must replace it with a good habit. Because if we don’t, students may very well replace that old bad habit with an even worse habit! The void where that old habit was is left open for just about anything to replace it. Once I realized that and started teaching good habits to replace those bad habits, everything improved. It is a strikingly simple, and extraordinarily logical notion, but I was so focused on breaking those bad habits that I hadn’t thought through what would replace them. Or worse, I just assumed a better habit would prevail. Oh, how wrong I was!
Peter Loel Boonshaft, Director of Education
KHS America
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