Image by Gordon
Johnson from Pixabay
101 The new style for better education
Note use of gender neutral pronouns:
ze (s/he); zem
(her/him); zir (his/her); zirself
Bidirectional
Starting at home
Do you control your
children? Do you feel manipulated by them? Do you learn from
them, as suggested in
Article 28? Often, I
think children learn to manipulate in self-defense as parents
learn how to lead without threatening.
So, the learning
relationship is bidirectional: each party teaches; each party
learns. Today we study the layers of that process. At first
blush, what is learned is what is being taught. When a parent
explains or demonstrates (teaches) how to paint a window frame,
we hope the child learns how to paint a window frame. However,
that is only one level of teaching and learning. Let us identify
a few more.
Learning from the other
My favorite form of
teaching takes place without being overtly recognized. I make a
game out of a mental exercise. I ask people to explain things to
me. I invite a friend to join in something enjoyable. The
behavior style is contagious: the most common phrase people use
to describe me is “gentle person.” They always say it in a
positive sense, which means the kindly influence is rubbing off
on them. Hopefully, my friends learn to love themselves from the
love I show them. As they think well of themselves, their
self-confidence increases. They are learning from
me.
Learning how to learn from the other
Some teachers are gifted
at explaining. However, even they are limited by the skill of the
student. In one program, a college chemistry teacher used a
ten-minute exercise (including moving around the room) that gave
students a practical hands-on sense of chemical bonding. My
experience was a class where the professor devoted about five
sentences to the topic. Neither teacher was wrong. The
students were differently prepared.
This observation extends
beyond student preparation to include teaching style. Sometimes I
adjust my learning style to fit the mannerisms of the teacher.
For example, belittling and sarcasm divert my energy away from
learning as I defend myself. On the other hand, a gentle
reassuring tone that encourages confidence might give a different
student the impression that ze already knows everything and does
not need to study. Especially in graduate school, faculty are not
hired because of the popularity of their explanations. They are
hired because they are advancing the field, and it is up to the
students to figure out how to benefit from joining them in the
project. The student is left to learn how to absorb the content
while the school provides real-life involvement in the
method.
Learning how the other teaches
While an obvious teaching
event is covering subject matter, there is more subtle learning
in progress. I have attended classes about running webinars. I am
not planning to run a webinar. Therefore, I was not there to
learn how the teacher runs webinars. I was learning how the
teacher teaches running webinars. I did not need the
specific topical content; I needed to learn the teaching
method.
This section applies
poignantly to adverse psychology, pretending to block progress
and thereby producing the adrenalin rush that achieves a
breakthrough. “You know you can’t do that” is typically meant as
a challenge to kick the other party into action, even if that is
in anger. It is an extremely dangerous device when the student
acquiesces to the judgment. The challenge then becomes the
self-fulfilling prophecy of doom instead of the spurs that goad
someone to growth. Because this method is sometimes used, it is
important for the student to learn, in self-defense, how that
teacher teaches.
Learning how to teach the other
While the student is
learning the subject, the teacher is studying how the student
learns the subject. Over several years in a graduate program,
this reciprocal sensitivity is a huge factor in the
relationship.
At the same time, the
student is learning how to teach the teacher what provides the
clearest impression. Over the years I have been clumsy at this
kind of “teaching back.” To the teacher it was not clear that I
was trying to facilitate the learning results that we both
desired.
Years ago, a radio
program gave me helpful insight into teaching the teacher. For
example, that speaker suggested an approach like “I am a visual
learner. Can you suggest more graphics-oriented material that
will augment this training?” In an apprenticeship setting the
student can request homework drills to provide enlightening
practice. A teacher who does not feel under attack is glad to
receive a useful suggestion that boosts the success
rate.
Enduring
In addition to being
bidirectional, effective teaching is enduring. Teacher and
student carry their attention forward while the teaching process
matures. I note several reasons that learning goes on over
time:
-
Repeating—We rarely remember completely after the first exposure.
- Accumulating—Individual facts, often disconnected, come together to
comprise a greater whole.
- Spiraling—We circle
around to the same information while we come closer to the knowledge core.
- Distributing—Combined knowledge is too weighty for a single lift. We
need to spread out the sessions.
-
Passing of time>—Especially in my writings, the time you spend thinking
between exposures is more important than the time of exposure itself.
Endurance enables the
student to absorb, and it enables the teacher to regenerate. My
piano tuning apprenticeship lasted for decades. At the end, when
my mentor was retired on health grounds, I had absorbed his
clientele and a significant part, but not all, of his knowledge.
For my entire fifty years in the field, I have learned impressive
material without interruption. We all know the effects of
education are enduring. Here I point out that the process itself
never ends.
Meaningful
Finally, I come to the
point of this article. Education is the change that takes place
in life. The value of facts and datapoints is the application to
better life, which I usually call the new world we are creating.
We probably cannot bring into existence something that is not
related to precedents. That sentence means we don’t create
something out of nothing. Education is our process of using what
exists to make something that was not there before. That
kind of creating is my definition of life, which is
eternal.
Every day I ask whether I
am making the world better. As explained above, that effort is
what I teach. The value of everything is its contribution to that
better world. My meaning lies in what I help you become, in
continuing to lift while you stand above me. Go for
it!
Being For Others Blog copyright © 2020 Kent Busse
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