Tuesday, May 02, 2006
THE ART OF TEACHING
THE ART OF TEACHING
Some professions are considered vocational because in order to be good and successful at it, you need to be born with a specific skill. Singing is one example. You are required to have a virtuous voice and very powerful vocal chords, otherwise, no matter how much or how long you practice, you will still be a mediocre singer.
Teaching should be considered a vocational job as well, for it is essential to possess a very concrete ability, that of being able to convey passion for a subject. Of course, you need to feel passion for that subject as well. In synthesis, teaching shares a lot of characteristics with preaching. You have to believe in what you are teaching or preaching and in its usefulness.
There is a larger likelihood that you will enjoy the subject if the person who teaches it counts with that skill, and so happens with religions, philosophical theories or political views. The more charming and enthusiastic the preacher is, the more influence that their beliefs will have on the pupils or disciples.
Unfortunately, there are not enough born-made teachers to cover the society’s need of instruction and therefore we need to make use of other two kinds of so-called teachers: the scientific (also known as Professor Honoris Causa wannabe) and the worst of all, the “I’m a teacher coz I can’t be anything else”.
Let’s talk about the real genuine teachers, the ones I call “MAESTRO”.
You can tell whether a teacher is a maestro from the very beginning. They like to start talking the first day about how marvelous and impassioning their subject is. After a few days, they’ll say: Now, I am going to explain something sort of tricky. Same as in a new card game, if you guys get it, the rest of the semester will be like having lots of fun. A magic glare will escape from their popping eyes while explaining those difficult points; you can feel their enjoyment. They will glance at you for a tenth of a second and that’ll be enough for them to know whether you are understanding or on the contrary, your mind is wandering around the satellites of Saturn. Some times, they’ll say: “stay with us Joe”, though in most cases, they won’t say anything and they’ll just wait until the end of the class to re-explain it to you personally.
These teachers will stop their explanation several times and say: “do you guys understand this? Whoa! I’m so proud of you. Never had a better group.”
At the end of the explanation they usually say: “it wasn’t that hard, was it? Remember, if you guy understood this, the rest of the subject is going to be as easy as chewing gum.”
Another type of teacher already mentioned is the Scientific or Professor Honoris Causa wannabe. They abound a lot in prestigious universities and in some high schools.
They start the class reading a few pages from the book. By the time they are done reading, forty percent of the students have fallen asleep, the other sixty are somewhat dazed. Then he or she will start to explain what they have just read. Their speech is monotone, full of artificial scholar language, gibberish-sounding. By the end of the class, all the miserable students are in a state of trance. Only a few resist the torture by poking the table with a pen until this one breaks and the ink splashes everywhere or by drawing pictures of the teacher’s head being pierced by the sharp beaks of two hungry vultures.
Only very outstanding and disciplined students can pass the final exams that these teachers prepare aiming to fail every person born of woman.
The careless “I’m a teacher coz I can’t be anything else” is by far, the worst teacher you can ever encounter. Many students switch schools or courses on account of them. You can find them mostly in elementary and middle schools.
They hate kids and teaching to start with. Their faces are wrinkled and look like they were smelling rotten eggs. For them, you are just a number. They’ll say: -number fourteen, come here, quickly! Write on the white board the name of the fifteen different kinds of water erosion and give a definition. They will punish the whole class if someone drops a pencil. They yell at you for no reason and you can see the veins of their throats swelling as though they were about to burst.
If you ask a question they don’t know how to answer, they’ll put you down and say: you think, you are very wise, don’t ya? Let’s see how wise you are tonight when you’ll be copying a hundred times the first page of the Webster New World Thesaurus...
The organisms responsible for hiring teachers, should make sure that none of this last kind is hired. They can be fatally harmful for the school’s environment and for the society’s development.
Some professions are considered vocational because in order to be good and successful at it, you need to be born with a specific skill. Singing is one example. You are required to have a virtuous voice and very powerful vocal chords, otherwise, no matter how much or how long you practice, you will still be a mediocre singer.
Teaching should be considered a vocational job as well, for it is essential to possess a very concrete ability, that of being able to convey passion for a subject. Of course, you need to feel passion for that subject as well. In synthesis, teaching shares a lot of characteristics with preaching. You have to believe in what you are teaching or preaching and in its usefulness.
There is a larger likelihood that you will enjoy the subject if the person who teaches it counts with that skill, and so happens with religions, philosophical theories or political views. The more charming and enthusiastic the preacher is, the more influence that their beliefs will have on the pupils or disciples.
Unfortunately, there are not enough born-made teachers to cover the society’s need of instruction and therefore we need to make use of other two kinds of so-called teachers: the scientific (also known as Professor Honoris Causa wannabe) and the worst of all, the “I’m a teacher coz I can’t be anything else”.
Let’s talk about the real genuine teachers, the ones I call “MAESTRO”.
You can tell whether a teacher is a maestro from the very beginning. They like to start talking the first day about how marvelous and impassioning their subject is. After a few days, they’ll say: Now, I am going to explain something sort of tricky. Same as in a new card game, if you guys get it, the rest of the semester will be like having lots of fun. A magic glare will escape from their popping eyes while explaining those difficult points; you can feel their enjoyment. They will glance at you for a tenth of a second and that’ll be enough for them to know whether you are understanding or on the contrary, your mind is wandering around the satellites of Saturn. Some times, they’ll say: “stay with us Joe”, though in most cases, they won’t say anything and they’ll just wait until the end of the class to re-explain it to you personally.
These teachers will stop their explanation several times and say: “do you guys understand this? Whoa! I’m so proud of you. Never had a better group.”
At the end of the explanation they usually say: “it wasn’t that hard, was it? Remember, if you guy understood this, the rest of the subject is going to be as easy as chewing gum.”
Another type of teacher already mentioned is the Scientific or Professor Honoris Causa wannabe. They abound a lot in prestigious universities and in some high schools.
They start the class reading a few pages from the book. By the time they are done reading, forty percent of the students have fallen asleep, the other sixty are somewhat dazed. Then he or she will start to explain what they have just read. Their speech is monotone, full of artificial scholar language, gibberish-sounding. By the end of the class, all the miserable students are in a state of trance. Only a few resist the torture by poking the table with a pen until this one breaks and the ink splashes everywhere or by drawing pictures of the teacher’s head being pierced by the sharp beaks of two hungry vultures.
Only very outstanding and disciplined students can pass the final exams that these teachers prepare aiming to fail every person born of woman.
The careless “I’m a teacher coz I can’t be anything else” is by far, the worst teacher you can ever encounter. Many students switch schools or courses on account of them. You can find them mostly in elementary and middle schools.
They hate kids and teaching to start with. Their faces are wrinkled and look like they were smelling rotten eggs. For them, you are just a number. They’ll say: -number fourteen, come here, quickly! Write on the white board the name of the fifteen different kinds of water erosion and give a definition. They will punish the whole class if someone drops a pencil. They yell at you for no reason and you can see the veins of their throats swelling as though they were about to burst.
If you ask a question they don’t know how to answer, they’ll put you down and say: you think, you are very wise, don’t ya? Let’s see how wise you are tonight when you’ll be copying a hundred times the first page of the Webster New World Thesaurus...
The organisms responsible for hiring teachers, should make sure that none of this last kind is hired. They can be fatally harmful for the school’s environment and for the society’s development.
# posted by Jousei @ 8:30 AM 
