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Poor teachers make simple things complex;
excellent teachers make complex things simple!
Learning is progressive. Concepts should always build from the familiar to the new. The true teacher stirs the ground and sows the seed. Poor teachers try to sow plants!
There are several identifiable levels of learning.
- Gaining the concept, such as in rote memorization.
- A degree of understanding of the realities.
- The ability to translate the concepts into the learner's own words without a loss of truth.
- The ability to defend the truth learned.
- Consistent practical application of the concepts to real life -- what one might call wisdom.
A key aspect of successful learning is Principle-Based Instruction in which the understanding of concepts is the goal. This allows rapid movement beyond rote memory and "cook book formulas.
Instead of providing a fish each day,
why not teach people to fish?
Secondly, we all learn by active involvement—the more doing, the greater the learning. Personal application, as opposed to rote memorization, is the way true and lasting learning occurs. A good teacher is in the background; learning, self discovery of truth, is prominent.
I hear and I forget,
I see and I remember,
I do and I understand.
- Chinese Proverb
Good teaching excites and directs self-activity by the learner. It must be this way since true education is much more the work of the learner than of the teacher! True teaching is not that which gives knowledge, but that which stimulates learners to gain knowledge.
Nothing said to us, nothing we can learn from others,
reaches us so deeply as that which we find ourselves.
- Theodore Reik
Consider that in order to teach, one must "know" the subject. Imperfect knowing results in imperfect teaching. Some believe that one who truly knows a subject must teach!
The most effective teachers are dealing with fresh insights and confirmations of prior knowledge. The vigor of mental action, like that of muscular action, is proportioned to the stimulus which inspires it. Effective teachers have an enthusiasm of a contagious nature.
The true function of the teacher is to create
the most favorable conditions for self-learning …
One might say, he teaches best who teaches least.
- John Milton Gregory
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