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A Teacher’s Most Useful Skill Is Compassion
What it really means when you tell yourself your students are ‘lazy’
I get a lot of emails and private messages from people who have read my essay, “Laziness Does Not Exist,” and want to ask me for advice. Usually, I answer the questions in private, if I have the time, but I thought I’d share this one because it’s particularly unique, yet also cuts to the core of a problem that many readers and commenters have raised: How do you motivate an ineffective student or employee without judging them for being lazy?
This question came from a neurologist who supervises medical residents. She’s struggling with how to handle her mentee’s mistakes in a way that both motivates them to do the very best they can do and doesn’t pigeonhole the screw-ups as being caused by “laziness.” Here’s what she wrote:
I am a neurologist with a background in psychology. In addition to direct patient care, a large part of my job is teaching medical students and residents, both in a classroom and through direct and indirect supervision on patient-care teaching units in a hospital.
I read your piece on laziness with rapt interest. I struggle with a tendency to brand medical learners as lazy (in my head) when I feel they are not performing to the standard I feel our patients…
