How To Teach

Like I know.

But on Wednesday nights our church is presenting Bruce Wilkinson's Seven Laws of the Learner. It was only the first night, but it sparked a few thoughts.

In summary, some teachers just cover the material, but this lesson says,"If the student didn't learn, then the teacher didn't teach."

Very interesting. Who were your favorite teachers? What were they like?

Mine was in college, but he was not a professor. I remember experimenting with the fastest ways to prep a green pepper. He wore a T-shirt that said "Do you have change for my paradigm?" on the day that we learned about paradigm shifts. I learned about Baldridge, which my current employer constantly is applying for. He definitely didn't just cover the material, he had unique ways of presenting concepts, and he was invested in both his students and his employers. I can't remember his name. "Mr. P" is what we called him. But I remember his class.

On Wednesday, I walked away thinking I had a lot of growing to do in this area. I also had a few affirmations. We studied the meanings of the words "teach" and "learn", and they are basically the same words. Teaching is "to cause to learn". And I thought,

1) My best teaching moments are when I am learning. I don't know enough to be called an expert in anything, but I do know how to find things out. We find things out together.

2) Their best learning moments are when they are teaching. Sometimes I play dumb or sometimes I have them learn on their own and then tell me what they've learned. Maybe they write a book about it or try to teach it to each other. That's when I know they've got it.

This is what I have to work on:
Great teachers serve. Just like great wives, great moms, great friends, etc. During my silent tantrum today, I was thinking how this whole marriage/kid thing really doesn't benefit me but I'm stuck. I'm growing old faster, have less money for myself, uglier, dumber, and have to work much harder since I decided a family would be nice. Poor me. That was when I was focused on myself. However, once I repented and remembered self-centered thoughts lead to misery (and ate some frozen custard), What joy I had watching the children do their math and then tucked them into bed!

Being served does not bring joy, but joy comes from serving others. That's my chiastic structure for today. Hopefully I can continue to remember this. I really don't know how to teach, but this foundational lesson might just make a huge impact on this little academy!