Teaching those ready to learn?!?!?!?

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This blogger criticizes an attitude that is too obvious in too many educators who have been my colleagues over the years. Sometimes, it is captured in the observation, "I taught it, but they didn't learn it." Other times, the phrase, "it is my job to teach and their jobs to learn," is used to capture the same idea.

I get the idea that learning is an active process and students must engage with the ideas and the people if they are going to learn. Learning, however, is a process that depends on:

- Attention-- We pay attention only to things that matter to us, and the dry presentation of disconnected facts by a teacher, even under the threat of a test, does not meet the threshold of importance to most students.

- Connection-- Learning must proceed from known to new. If connections between new ideas and known ideas are not obvious, then nothing will be learned. Without these connections oneself be able to simulate learning by answering questions, but the "learning" will be unavailable for other purposes.

It is the job of the teacher to make curriculum something that matters to learners and something to which they connect. These are not characteristics of the profession that are negotiable, they ate the foundation of all that we do.

"Teaching those who are ready to learn" really means "teaching those who already know what I am going to teach them." That is like the mechanic who fixes cars that are not broken and the engineer who designs bridges that already exist.


- Dr. Gary Ackerman