7 Effective Teaching Examples

All of the exemplary teachers mentioned in this chapter shared the common method of discovering and considering the preexisting beliefs of their learners, as opposed to the traditional method of attempting to pour knowledge into the minds of the students with the hope that it will wash out any misconceptions lurking between the folds of the students cortexes.

The most frequent question I asked as a student was "why do we have to learn this?" I wasn't the most well behaved student, so the question often included a bit of profanity, and the answer often included a trip to the Principal's office. The answer afforded to better behaved students was little better; some variant of "because I said so" would have to suffice. The example in the chapter of the teacher who began her course by asking students what they wanted to know and who adapted her curriculum to respond to them is probably impractical for the majority of teachers, but it would have been the ideal answer to my question. I certainly would have been less of a fixture in Mr. King's office.

Human beings are naturally curious about their world and each other. The mysteries of nature have impressed us to the extent that most cultures have deified them for thousands of years. To take the curiousity that is natural to us, and the questions held us in awe since the advent of our species and hammer at their corpses until they are a burden is the product of a corruption of the most sinister kind. Without providing the relevance that is offered by these exceptional teachers we doom learners to view the educational system as minimum security prisons for thier minds. What's needed is to make what is now exceptional into the norm.