Real Teaching

The real thing can be hard to find these days. You have to read the labels to know if you're buying fruit juice or sugar water, ice cream or frozen chemicals, cheese or some cheese-like substance. I'm one of the few people on the planet who eats the parsley that decorates restaurant platters. I half expect that any day now that I'll bite into some green plastic.

Real teaching also seems to be fading away in some places. Bookshelves are heavy with colorful volumes. Piles of workbooks and folders sit alongside powerful computers. Project and bulletin board displays fill up the wall space. Teachers lecture and assign. Students go from class to class. Sometimes real teaching takes place, and, all too often, it doesn't.

Real teaching connects with the heart and mind of the student in ways that build a firm foundation for future learning. Spouting facts like water out of a hose isn't teaching. Assigning isn't teaching. Keeping students sitting quietly in seats isn't teaching. Anything the student doesn't understand or remember hasn't been taught, no matter how many times it's been said. If the student can't use knowledge as a beginning for new learning at a higher level, that knowledge hasn't been taught, no matter how many worksheets or projects have been done.

Real teaching begins with understanding. The material being presented has to connect with the interior experience of the student in a positive way. If the student doesn't grasp the meaning of the words, very little learning takes place. Today's texts often assume that students comprehend adult words like "federal", "industry", "minus", or "interest" that many young children have never heard. Communicating with students in words that they don't understand is like using a foreign language. They don't get it.

Another common problem is that textbooks often introduce various topics without providing enough explanation and practice for real learning to take place. Students are left feeling confused and discouraged when the class moves on. Later, when the topic is approached again, students only recall negative feelings that interfere with learning. Then it's hard to pay attention and real teaching becomes difficult. When high school teachers complain about the difficulty in getting students to pay attention, there has often been a buildup of partially digested information that interferes with future learning.

Teaching that leads to real learning connects with the interior knowledge and experience of each student. If the student lacks the vocabulary or previous experience necessary for understanding then the words and experiences have to be provided. It's helpful to develop meaning by using pictures, drama, songs, charts, video clips, puzzles, manipulatives, experiments, demonstrations, and even field trips in addition to verbal explanation. The more interactive these experiences are, the better. Students learn what they do.

Another aspect of connecting new information with the previous knowledge of the student is to associate experiences with words and symbols. Students need to be able to explain what they have learned in words, pictures, or mathematical symbols. Just providing manipulatives for a child to play with or even taking the child to exotic faraway places doesn't insure learning. Experience has to be conceptualized and associated with words or symbols in order to be internally connected and externally expressed.

Following the development of understanding, real learning requires practice and use. No one would expect a person to play a sport after reading the rulebook. Many hours of practice are necessary. Likewise, it's essential to use knowledge. Even a native language can be lost if it's not used for many years. Using knowledge to produce a project or performance sets the learning firmly in the student's mind.

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Mary Sue Laing, Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School newskill7@msn.com

Mary Sue Laing, M.Ed.
Resource Teacher, St. Ambrose School
newskill7@msn.com

by Mary Sue Laing, M. Ed., New Skill, Inc. Academic Tutor