What is teaching?
Is teaching the process of knowledge transfer between “master” and pupil?
We can first ask what is knowledge? Have you thought about it? How can you recognize it in yourself and in others? What does it mean to “know?”
The thesaurus diagram above helps a bit…look at the groupings for the word “know,” To know or to have knowledge of something means that you, 1) can recall/recollect/retrieve information, 2) understand, 3) are experienced, 4) are able to discern and differentiate, 5) are able to recognize and be aware. So if our students really know something – they are truly empowered!
But how do they “get it”? How do they get this “know”?
The pedagogical term cognition can help shed some light into this knowledge business. Cognition means to come to know (from the Latin cognoscere) You will notice how close the word is to “conocer” in Spanish which means: to know. So cognition is the outcome – it is the result of perception, and learning, and reasoning.
Well, is a teacher’s job then to pass on his or her knowledge to the student? This would be something akin to pouring facts and figures into a student’s head. Sure sounds like it would be easy but very boring! But is that how students learn to “know?”
Another term that might help shed light is metacognition. The prefix “meta” just means: about, higher or beyond. This is really the key for teachers.
Metacognition is the in-built skill of an explicit and conscious learning self-awareness; how one processes input through our senses, how one processes the information, how one makes connections with one’s own prior knowledge, how one gains and stores new insights, how one recognizes noise or deficiencies in one’s understanding and how one applies techniques to correct them. Doty, et. al. in Teaching Reading in Social Studies for example say, “Effective readers who have learned metacognitive skills can plan and monitor their comprehension, adapting and modifying their reading accordingly. Struggling readers need to be taught how to monitor their thinking as they read and how to select appropriate strategies to help them when needed.”
So what is a teacher supposed to do - really? If metacognition is student’s internal process of a learning self-awareness what is the teacher’s role? To enable the process of course!
I love the succinct teaching of Dr. Howard Hendricks, he says, “the way people learn determines how you teach” Wow – how simple and direct.
He says,
Teach students how to think
Teach people how to learn
Teach people how to work
The teacher must be a motivator; and the learner is primarily an investigator, a discoverer, and a doer. Teach to THINK, LEARN & WORK by helping students master:
Reading
Writing
Listening
Speaking
What is your take?
1 comment:
I'm now reading John Taylor Gatto. If you have read any of his stuff, I'd be interested to exchange views with you. With his critiques fresh in my mind, here're a few things that occur to me reading your post:
1) Most schools are not set up to teach the way most children learn (they remove kids from family and an adult environment where people work, thus preventing them from gaining the experience necessary to make sense of the abstractions they learn in school).
2) Schools and government have conspired to persuade the public that certified teachers have this special something that only they can provide, and that if you don't get it you're doomed to a hell of everlasting ignorance.
3) The most important kind of learning is that which leads to self-knowledge. When all is said and done, only you can teach yourself.
4) Who decides what is worth learning? The boredom and apathy I face in my classes seems to suggest that students have figured out that "education" is something that in the final analysis is not primarily about them and their interests. Someone else is always deciding what is important to learn, then testing me on it. I don't agree with everything Gatto writes, but he has a way of forecefully presenting issues that are worth thinking about.
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