The whole point of education is to get people to learn
It seems that there’s a general perception that educators (of any level) do nothing more than merely stand at the front of the classroom writing on the board and grading papers. It is unfortunate that teaching is one profession that doesn’t get nearly as much respect as it deserves, yet there’s so much focus on the level of mastery students should leave school with. How can we expect students to achieve a certain level of mastery when teachers seem to be diminished to the stereotypes previously stated?
Good teachers are more than just lecturers. They’ve mastered the technique of not only delivering content to their students but engaging their students in a manner that allows them to retain the information provided to them. Michael Wesch talked about the importance of significance in learning – if students don’t find information significant will they really learn what’s being presented to them? This is directly linked to the motivational theories of interest and caring (but that’s a rabbit hole for a different day). Essentially, people only care about things that are important – things that matter to them. Education is no different. Especially if you want to prepare students to transfer the knowledge received by you (the educator) in various contexts while in your class and beyond it.
As teachers, we are only as effective as what our students actually learn. Even with the standardize testing system in place (another rabbit hole for a different day), we are measured by students’ performance which may be linked to information actually learned and retained for later recollection (all things normal). As an instructor of first year engineering students, I stress to them that my role is not to simply deliver content via powerpoint. I’m here to facilitate their learning experience and prepare them for moving into their specific engineering disciplines. If at the end of any given semester if my students haven’t learned anything then what exactly have I taught?
Interesting points! This brings up many more questions as I read it. Like, how can we ever know if we have taught effectively? Does assessment even work? and if assessment does work than what form of assessment works best?
How responsible are teachers for encouraging their students to want to learn? Is that the educator’s job? The parent? Society? The individual? I don’t know. If the only way you can successfully make someone learn is to threaten them with a bad grade or a failed test does that reflect worse on the teacher or on the student?