Topic:
The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.

Response:

Praising positive actions and ignoring the negative ones can be considered as a great way of incentivizing the desired positive qualities in an individual. This ideal ensures that the person doesn't get the kind of discouragement and self-doubt that entails criticism. But even so, the principle would undoubtedly have setbacks when ubiquitously adopted and discretion needs to be employed when following such policies.

Fundementally, basic human instincts yearns for acceptance and the significance increases when the acceptance comes as a reward for any effort that we have put in. When this happens we can't help but feel a sense of exuberance and we get the confidence that we are proficient at the activity we indulged and worked in. For illustration, consider a student practising scrupulously for a class test. For such a student the biggest encouragement for his efforts would be when he gets to know that he has aced the said test, when results come out. This would serve as a positive stumili that pushes the student to aim for much higher goals and would make him confident enough to pursue such an endeavour. Thus in the long run the student would have sublimaly imbibed the idea that working hard on studying would lead to him acheving academic excellence.

Extending the above example, when circumspecting we also find that if such a student were to fail in his goal or intended target, the best course of action would be to ignore it. In such a scenerio the pragmatic approach of not adding to the student's woes by furthur discouraging him would be the best rational move. If he was reprimanded for his failure there is a high chance that the student would start suspecting his academic competency. Hence ignoring negative actions might be the best alternative in situations as such.

However, even so there are cases where certain negative actions need to censured and prohibited in order to curb them. For instance, a child resorting to stealing other's possessions might start devolping the idea that such an act is acceptable, if ignored. Acts of covetousness or malevolence need to be strictly discouraged to prevent it from burgeoning. Just as praising positive actions leads to it's encouragement, censuring negative ones would help immaterialize such qualities in an individual.

In sum, one could safely assert that praising positive actions would be the best course for proliferating them although one should also not hesitate to punish and reprimand negative actions whenver deemed fit, adhering to the popular saying, 'Spare the rod, spoil the child'.