The best teachers ask their students questions.
Teaching isn’t telling.
Teaching is allowing your students to teach you what they don’t know and then guiding them to finding the answers by asking the right questions.
Students learn from each other and not a teacher.
Teachers need to get out of the way of knowing between young minds.
It’s so true. Anyone can mindlessly listen to a lesson but when you get the questions, that is where the learning takes place.
A lot of the text of the Babylonian Talmud is in the context of asking questions and then providing answers just terse enough that the reader can then probe further. It’s best, of course, when done with a partner or group for that reason. Each person can bring up other questions and the learning continues.
That’s a great example, Gordon! Yes, teaching is really about getting out of the way and it can be a hard lesson to learn because what matters most is not you, but rather how your students interact with each other.
I absolutely agree with it David.
As a student, unless I can answer questions or explain problems my learning doesn’t complete.
As a teacher/ trainer, I can gauge my students’ level of understanding by the way they explain things each other.
This is also a great way of learning because something unheard/ unknown/ unseen can come out of this discussion.
Well said, Katha. With attention spans waning –
http://urbansemiotic.com/2008/10/24/biologically-hardwired-to-wander-the-eighteen-minute-attention-span/
– we can’t expect students to accept the panopticonic lecture meme for learning in the carceral classroom.
Questioning naturally makes the learning interactive.
I’ve found this to be true, David.
It’s the questions that send us looking for answers we didn’t even know existed.
Right, Dananjay, and experience helps us know the important questions to ask. That’s the real role of the teacher: Knowing enough to know which questions need answering.