Poetry is at times the best bridge between reason and understanding. Here is a piece about teaching which I found worth the three mintues to watch. Teacher-poet Taylor Mali is asked, at a dinner party, “You’re a teacher, Taylor. Be honest: what do you make?”
Here is his answer: What Teachers Make
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Any time we teach, we choose what facets of ourselves to show our student in order to best teach them. If we believe that students learn mechanically and by following instructions, then rewards may motivate. If not, if we believe that that learning is a creative act, then we must take serious note of this research and change our pedagogical processes accordingly. There is a corporate belief that a formal class on a subject is the best way to improve employee performance. Donald Clark, elearning speaker, blogger, and entrepreneur, writes: How many training departments have an informal training strategy? Very few, despite the evidence that the majority of what we learn is not through courses, but informally from [...] My thanks to Cal Teacher, who notes John Spencer as one of his “must read” blog authors. From Spencer’s article Monday Metaphor: Barbecue Guy: I teach best when I have fewer resources. It forces me to be creative and to design and custom-fit resources to the context of my classroom. I am better [...] Over the years I have come to judge various approaches to life and the sacred by their accessibility. While this is often more about the presenter’s abilities than the path itself, if the teaching is not accessible then it is useless. It is always tempting to define ourselves by the tools we have – or lack – rather than by we do with them. Yes, a writing implement is necessary to teach writing, and a computer is required to teach programming, but a poor teacher can make worthless the best of these tools, and [...] This might be a good time to touch on matters of faith. In a recent interview with Chris Hedges I found this thought-provoking definition of fundamentalism: Fundamentalism can be found within either a secular or a religious framework. It’s a binary worldview that divides the world into us and them, good and evil, right and [...] I have said: say less. To this I add: write less and demonstrate less. A recurring theme in my writing is what might be called selfless teaching, that is, teaching with a focus on the student’s benefit in learning rather than what a teacher can gain from the student. Some of my readers find this obvious; of course the point of teaching is to benefit the student. Others [...] |
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