As a new teacher, I often did more preaching than teaching. Sometimes my preaching came in the form of "you can do it" speeches. Other times I lectured students about the work habits of successful people, and admonished them for self-defeating behaviors such as disorganization, tardiness, and irresponsibility. I also tried to inspire students with my Success Comes From the H.E.A.R.T. formula. 

But whether I was cheerleading or chastising, my motivational efforts had no effect on students. Correction: no positive effect on students, since I got lots of pushback from them. Most memorable was when a student interrupted me and said, "F_ _ _ you. You don't know anything about our lives." Language aside, he had a good point, as did the student who wrote on a feedback form, "You should act like a math teacher instead of a salesperson." 

As I've written before, my students were my best teachers. And what they taught me in this case was that I needed to stop preaching and start teaching. Rather than tell students they could be successful, I needed to show them how to be successful. I needed to model the behaviors I wanted students to exhibit, reinforce those behaviors when students exhibited them, and establish policies and protocols that targeted those behaviors. Here are a few examples of how I replaced preaching with teaching:

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