Nov 122013
In my third year of teaching I had a student teacher (I have conveniently forgotten her name) who spent a whole semester with me. Along about December she asked, “Do you ever teach them anything?”
I was stunned by her question and quickly swallowed my surprise and asked her what she meant.
“Get up in front of them and tell them…”
My heart sank. She had missed the whole point of my teaching. “No,” I replied, “I guess I never teach them anything.”
“But just look at all they are learning…” I silently screamed.
Her limited and rigid experience only recognized a model of education where the teacher tells and the student passively listens. I was so saddened that I was unable to even begin to explain what I was doing. I thought it should be obvious….