Loving your learners: the lesson design secret nobody talks about

It’s scary but vital to love your learners

You clicked on this article, so bravo! As touchy-feely as this might sound, I hope that deep down, this idea resonates with you.

And that’s the idea of designing your lessons with the idea that your students will one day surpass you.

I know it’s a scary thought because it’ll flip the power structure that you’re used to. But fundamentally, that’s what it means to have your instructional design from a place of love. Because when you write curriculum from a deep, determined desire to see your learners succeed – that’s creating true impact with your lessons.

More importantly, it’s strategic. It’s science-based. It’s not just sentimental. And when you think about it – that’s what the best educators do behind the scenes. They teach like they love their learners. They teach like John Keating (Robin Williams) in Dead Poets Society.

They teach because they love their learners.

Love as a design choice

So what do we mean by love? In the educational context, it’s not entirely about the fuzzy, huggy kind of love.

Love has three components:

• High expectations: you want your learners to succeed at the task
• Deep empathy: you have your learners’ wellbeing at heart
• Future-focused mindset: you want your learners to thrive – for life

It’s not about reducing the lesson difficulty to make your learners happy. It’s about putting their growth at the centre of your lesson.

It results in positive teacher-student relationships. Jeffrey Cornelius-White’s research revealed that this leads to better engagement, achievement, and motivation – optimal, holistic learning.

We’re humans, after all. Therefore, it makes sense that the relationship – the trust, care, and belief – matter as much, or even more, than the lesson content.

The self-transcendent educator

We’re all familiar with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, with self-actualisation at the top of his five-tier model created in 1943. But in the late 1960s, Maslow actually added a sixth level – self-transcendence – into his hierarchy of needs. He described it as a pursuit of meaning beyond the self, often through altruism, spiritual experience, or service to others.

That’s where love in education comes from – the level of self-transcendence. It’s the ability to rise above your own needs and dedicate yourself to a cause greater than yourself, which is in this case, is your learners.

It’s not just noble (or so you can stand on a pedestal) – it’s actually effective. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson showed us that when educators have high expectations, learners rise to meet them. If you think your learners are capable of amazing things, then they become capable of amazing things.

It’s an expression of the Pygmalion Effect – the psychological phenomenon when higher expectations lead to improved performance.

The science of mixing love and learning

Self-Determination Theory by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan tells us that learners need three psychological needs to thrive – autonomy, competence, and relatedness. When you think about it, loving your learners is exactly what meets those three psychological needs, which helps them to thrive.

• Autonomy: Loving your learners means trusting your learners.
• Competence: Loving your learners means believing in their competence.
• Relatedness: Loving your learners means caring about them.

Lea Waters and Dan Loton’s meta-framework on about positive education (embedding positive psychology in education) also supports this. The research on their SEARCH framework (Strengths, Emotional Management, Attention & Awareness, Relationships, Coping, Habits & Goals) showed that fostering the wellbeing and academic skills leads to improved motivation and reduced mental health issues in learners. So when you root for your learners – even if you apply pressure to them – they have deeper engagement and persistence.

If we just look at adult learning, Malcolm Knowles’ theory of andragogy also shows us that adults learn best when learning is relevant, their experiences are valued, and they feel autonomous and self-directed. All these happen when you love your learners, and it doesn’t mean simplifying the lesson for them. Loving your learners means:

• Designing like you respect them (making their learning feel relevant)
• Challenging them intelligently (making them feel autonomous and self-directed)
• Acknowledging their real-world wisdom (valuing their experiences)

That’s three different perspectives which support the efficacy of curriculum design from the perspective of love.

Why this is so important

At the end of the day, education isn’t about transmitting information. It’s about interpersonal relationships. Because when people feel loved (not being coddled or flattered), when they feel seen – they become more willing to learn.

As Mary Helen Immordino-Yang and Antonio Damasio said in their paper – “we feel, therefore we learn“. They discovered that emotions are central to learning, attention, and memory. That’s why emotionally safe learning environments, created by love, literally boost brain function.

Additionally, Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-Build Theory shows that positive emotions, created by loving our learners, expand our ability to think, innovate, and problem-solve.

Fundamentally, we remember how someone made us feel, not what they said. That’s where the power of loving our learners comes from.

Designing from a place of love

So what does it mean to design from a place of love? There’s lesson prep and lesson design – so regardless of whether you’re a curriculum developer or trainer, there are ways to infuse the love of your learners into the lesson. Here are things I’ve done – and suggestions for other types of learners

1. Start from a place of empathy

One thing I always do is a mood/energy check-in before the class begins. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how you are feeling today?”

This helps me to understand where they’re at, and to tailor the delivery accordingly. If many are at a 4 or less, maybe I need to check in on them emotionally before beginning – or give them more scaffolding. But if many are at a 9 or 10, then it’s time to break out the really challenging material. Loving your learners also means giving them higher level material at the right time.

Ask them about their goals, struggles, and dreams – beyond the lesson. What are their fears? Their desires?

2. Set the intention

I usually share the lesson outline so that the learners know what material we’ll be going through today. Not only does it prepare them for what’s next, it also sets the intention that this is what we’ll go through.

Mentally, I also think to myself – how can I help them to do better?

At one point in time, I had many learners with special needs in my classes. So I came up with a guide to grounding themselves during challenging times, and I told them that they could ask me for the guide and excuse themselves at any time. This gave them the space and support to manage their own needs, so that they could come back more grounded and be in a better space for leaning.

3. Build positive relationships

The most basic one is to use learners’ names. Remembering their interests and being curious about them is another. To me, the key is customisation.

I used to teach a week-long intensive training camp for younger learners. At the beginning of the camp, I would ask them to share their name, school, and their favourite animal as an icebreaker. But then I’d secretly note down their favourite animal – so that at the end of the camp, I could customise their certificates with their favourite animal.

They’d come back for other camps after that. 😀

4. Anticipate their joy

Remember that you want to see them succeed, right? So add in moments where they get to feel clever, successful, or surprised. For younger learners, this means that maybe you intentionally get something wrong (that is within their domain of knowledge, say something Brawl Stars related) – so that they can correct for you.

For adult learners, it’s about asking them to share their expertise with you – and let them teach you something new. It can also be about giving them a puzzle or challenge to solve, and seeing the look of satisfaction when they figure it out.

For a class about positive psychology that I teach, I’ll plan a scavenger hunt for the adult learners to go on to learn about the components of wellbeing. It always culminates in a sense of satisfaction when they complete the activity and collect the whole set. Everyone loves a complete set.

5. Foreshadow success

This means to sneak in some skills-building that will be useful later. So it could be about getting them to memorise the steps for a certain process, then getting them to do that process later.

For this educational escape room that I run, I’d usually do a lower-level cipher as an “introduction” to the real escape room. But during the actual escape room itself, they have an even more difficult cipher to solve, which builds on the lower-level they did earlier. Because they’ve already learnt about how ciphers work, there’s this “a-ha!” moment when they connect it to the earlier cipher, and solve the puzzle.

6. Scaffold without ego

Ultimately, you want your learners to win – to learn. So tasks must be achievable. They can be challenging, but not impossibly so. Leave hints and clues if they really need it. Plan it in such a way that they’re stretched, not frustrated.

For a reflective learning session that I conducted, I knew the learners would have to come up with many reflections and create an artwork at the end with very little time. So along the way, I made all of them reflect and up with material for their final task. When the final task came along, the timing was tight – but they had all the mental material they needed, so it was more a matter of art and layout, and it felt achievable.

7. Design for dignity

For me, this means avoiding busywork. Busywork is like having ten blank lines in the learner’s guide or textbook, so that learners have to copy down three paragraphs of notes. I really loathe lessons where learners have to copy down chunks of material that could already be in the worksheet itself. It feels like that’s just meant to mindlessly prolong the lesson because the lesson writer couldn’t put in enough worthy material to justify the length of the class.

Instead, I only leave blanks for key words they should fill in. Sometimes, I put in the first letter of the key word for them. This way, they don’t think they’re being forced to do busywork, they can figure it out on their own if they really want to, and writing down keywords reinforces the learning.

They don’t feel like I’m wasting their time for the sake of it, thus retaining their dignity.

8. Create autonomy

Choices are important. This encourages independent thinking – because who doesn’t like freedom?

For corporate training, especially when it comes to discussions or group work – give the learners as much freedom as you can. Remember the improv principle of “yes, and…” Let them have the autonomy to choose, then help them modify it to fit the outcomes you want.

Root for your learners to surpass you

“The student has now become the master.”

Maybe we all fear that as educators. But frankly, there’s no better testament of having been a good teacher, when your students do better than you. When your love of your learners has translated into something so much more powerful.

So take the role of an educator who loves the learners.

It’s about being the coach. The ally. The Gandalf – you know, he’s more powerful than the rest of the Fellowship combined, but he’s willing to sacrifice himself so the rest of them can succeed. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself, but you should want your learners to win.

You’ve got this. You can love your learners.

Because (remember Pygmalion Effect?) when you believe they can do better – they really can do better.

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References

Cornelius-White, J. (2007). Learner-centered teacher-student relationships are effective: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 113–143.

Maslow, A. H. (1969). The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1(1), 1–9.

Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and pupils’ intellectual development. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2000). The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227–268.

Waters, L., & Loton, D.J. (2019). SEARCH: A Meta-Framework and Review of the Field of Positive Education. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 4, 1-46.

Knowles, M. S. (1984). Andragogy in Action: Applying Modern Principles of Adult Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3–10.

Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218–226.