Bruce Lee: My Favorite Teacher

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

“If you want to learn to swim jump into the water. On dry land no frame of mind is ever going to help you.”

Bruce Lee

I had a very unique and life-changing experience two weeks ago. One that I was not expecting. 

It was the October half-term and I decided to to take a well-earned break from things for a few days. I and my wife traveled to Khao Yai National Park in Thailand to enjoy a few days in nature. We both certainly appreciated the fresh air and scenery. 

On the way to Khao Yai I noticed a road sign that said ‘Pak Chong’ which specified a number of kilometers to get there. It wasn’t far way, and as a massive Bruce Lee fan I knew that this was the place where The Big Boss was filmed. 

That’s quite a big deal for a lifelong martial artist and a big Bruce Lee fan. The Big Boss, filmed in 1971, was the movie that propelled Bruce to epic levels of fame in Asia. It was his ‘big break’, so to speak. 

I, like a lot of pre-millenial kids, had a rocky life growing up. I wasn’t without life’s necessities but a number of people at that time really tried to mess things up for me. I was bullied at school by a number of individuals who wouldn’t dare bully me now. My parents had also divorced when I was around 2-years-old and that created a domino effect which basically made things difficult. 

We’ve all had our fair share of challenge in life. Many people choose to give up when the going gets tough – they might turn to alcohol, drugs, gangs or things like that. Thankfully for me, however, my dad took me to learn Shotokan Karate at age 11, and soon after that I learned about Bruce Lee.

I read Bruce’s ‘Chinese Gung Fu‘ and ‘The Tao of Jeet Kune Do’ when I was only a teenager. Bruce’s message about handling combat seemed to resonate with me and began to influence many non-combat areas of my life:

  • Train every part of your body and work as hard as you can – that message helped me a lot. Physical training and hard study helped me to ‘escape’ from some of the problems I had at home. I believe that Bruce’s message helped me to develop this drive. 
  • Use the enemy’s strength against him: the idea of matching aggression with relaxation, allowing the opponent to complete his force, and then respond with aggression (the ‘Yin Yang’ dynamic) also had parallels in my life. When people got in my face and moaned, bullied or complained at me, I felt it necessary to listen, respond calmly and remain unfazed. I would then get on with my life and try harder than ever. I just couldn’t be provoked or pushed around anymore. The bullying just didn’t upset me anymore, and when one kid went too far and tried to push me around, I used my Shotokan skills to respond (and that’s the polite way of describing what happened). Needless to say, he stayed away from me after that.

Bruce Lee lived by example. He actually had high-level skills. He practiced what he preached. If Bruce told you to “train every part of your body”, you’d better believe that he was the ultimate epitome of that philosophy. 

I honestly believe that good teachers cannot be hypocrites. If you’re teaching your students about the dangers of smoking but you smoke, then you’re a fraud. If you’re teaching physical education but you’re morbidly obese, then you’re a fraud. 

Bruce wasn’t a fraud. If he told you to do it, then that meant he could do it like a pro. 

I went to the Big Boss’ house in Pak Chong and I was surprised to find that it had changed little since 1971. To stand at the location where Bruce Lee actually fought the bad guys, and the Big Boss himself, was like going on a sacred pilgrimage:

Bruce lee big boss Richard Rogers 1.jpg

Bruce Lee Big Boss Richard Rogers 2.jpg

The Big Boss’ house is actually an active temple called Wat Siri Samphan. I had the opportunity to meet and talk with the head monk at the temple, who told me that soon the temple may be refurbished, and some of iconic structures that still stand may be knocked down:

Monk wat siri samphan with Richard .jpeg

I am now working with a number of individuals to preserve Bruce lee’s legacy in Pak Chong by securing the historic filming locations so that they can be enjoyed by many generations to come. 

Updates will follow.

IMG_5938

richard-rogers-online

We welcome you to join the Richard Rogers online community. Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter for daily updates.

Latest hybrid

The Power of Praise Paperback: Proofreading Complete

My second book, The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback, has now been officially proofread. This is an exciting development, and means that I can now proceed to the formatting and indexing stages.

The paperback will be ready to purchase from Amazon globally in early December of 2019. 

There will also be some giveaways of the book hosted at my Facebook page, so definitely watch that space!

Wishing all of my readers and fans a happy week ahead!

Richard 

POP Proofread

Exciting New Online Course for Teachers!

UKEd-Acad

The Fundamentals of Classroom Management: An online course designed by Richard James Rogers in Partnership with UKEd Academy 

I’m very excited to announce that I’ve been busy building an online course that covers all of the fundamental concepts in my widely acclaimed debut book: The Quick Guide to Classroom Management, in partnership with my good friends at UKEd Academy. Details are given below:

Course link: https://uked.academy/product/cmf/

Price: £30.00 (which includes a copy of my book) or £20.00 if you’ve already got a copy of my book (you’ll have to enter a discount code found within the book)

Launch date: October 21st 2019 (but you can start the course at anytime)

End of course certificate?Yes, endorsed by UKEd Academy and Richard James Rogers 

Course structure: Videos, quizzes, study notes, reflections and activities

Course schedule: Flexible (work at your own pace)

After successful completion of this course you’ll earn a certificate that will look very impressive on your C.V. and you will gain lots of knowledge, new techniques, tools and skills.  

I look forward to mentoring and guiding you through the key concepts that make an excellent teacher, well, excellent!

If you have any questions at all about this exciting course, then please e-mail me at info@richardjamesrogers.com

IMG_5938

richard-rogers-online

We welcome you to join the Richard Rogers online community. Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter for daily updates.

Latest hybrid

The Disconnect: How Over-Rewarding Fails Students

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management and The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback).

Illustrated by Sutthiya Lertyongphati

Accompanying podcast episode:

A dangerous culture has quietly found its way into a large number of American and British schools in the past decade. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing that seems pretty on the surface but harbors malice within; over-rewarding continues to take hold like a malignancy to this day. 

Betty Berdan was an American high-school junior at the time of writing this excellent opinion piece in the New York Times. She eloquently summarizes her thoughts on over-rewarding as follows:

Like many other kids my age, I grew up receiving trophy after trophy, medal after medal, ribbon after ribbon for every sports season, science fair and spelling bee I participated in. Today the dozens of trophies, ribbons and medals sit in a corner of my room, collecting dust. They do not mean much to me because I know that identical awards sit in other children’s rooms all over town and probably in millions of other homes across the country.

Rewarding kids with trophies, medals and certificates for absolutely everything they do, including participation in a sports event, seems harmless at first glance: what’s wrong with encouraging kids to take part, right? 

jenga

My thoughts on this are simple: the real-world doesn’t reward mediocrity, and if school’s are designed to prepare kids for the real world, then they shouldn’t be rewarding mediocrity either. 

Your boss doesn’t give you a pay-raise or certificate for turning up to a meeting: it’s a basic expectation. You don’t get instant recognition and brand awareness for starting an online business: you have to slog your guts out and make it happen.

The world is cruel, but it’s especially cruel to high-school graduates who’ve been babied right the way through their schooling and come out the other side believing that they’re entitled to everything: that they’ll receive recognition for doing the bare-minimum. 

Some teachers may feel that rewarding everyone, but keeping ‘special rewards for winners’ is a good way to go. But what benefits can be extrapolated from removing first, second and third place prizes at a sporting event, or even removing winner’s trophies completely?

award

According to Alfie Kohn, author of Punished by Rewards: 

A key takeaway here is that awards aren’t bad just because the losers are disappointed; everyone (including the winners) ultimately lose when schooling is turned into a scramble to defeat one’s peers

Really, Alfie? So awards are bad because losers and winners feel bitter? I think school culture has got a lot do with that. In school’s where students are encouraged to celebrate each other’s achievements, and aspire to do their best, overall achievement and attainment increases.  A massive study by the University of East Tennessee, for example, found that classroom celebrations of achievement enhanced:

  • Group solidarity
  • Sense of belonging
  • Teacher’s ability to find joy and meaning in teaching

I don’t see much about bitterness there, Alfie. 

Here’s another one I pulled-up: A meta-analysis of 96 different studies conducted by researchers at the University of Alberta found that (look at the last sentence especially):

…….reward does not decrease intrinsic motivation. When interaction effects are examined, findings show that verbal praise produces an increase in intrinsic motivation. The only negative effect appears when expected tangible rewards are given to individuals simply for doing a task.

This confirms what teachers have known for years (at least those with brains in their heads): that awards have no value when they are given to everyone, but have lots of value when they have to be earned. This coincides with the Four Rules of Praise that I wrote about in 2018 (supporting video below). 

Conclusion

Teaching profession, some words of wisdom: Awards and rewards only work to improve motivation, attainment and achievement when the students have had to earn them. Foster a school culture of collective celebration when students achieve success (such as using awards assemblies), and articulate the skills and qualities needed to achieve success to those students who sit and watch the winners, hopefully with smiles on their face and pride in knowing that one of their own made it happen, and they can too. 

richard-rogers-online

We welcome you to join the Richard Rogers online community. Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter for daily updates.

Latest hybrid