"Children love to learn, but hate to be taught", said Edward Blishen, in his wonderful book The School That I'd Like. A truth that schools largely ignore.
Most people I have met do not appreciate the nature of compulsion in education. They can't accept that you cannot compel anyone to learn anything. The interest must come from the learner - all learning comes from the learner. No adult would tolerate being forced to learn stuff that they had no interest in, so why do we imagine that children, bright, eager children should endure it - for 12 years or more? Besides, most learning about life is done outside the classroom. What little learning that takes place in school is usually by accident, hardly ever by design.
As Oscar Wilde said:
"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time, that nothing worth knowing can be taught".
As a teacher, I used many methods of engaging my pupils with the lesson. These included wrapping up the point I was making in a story; using humour when possible; introducing critical thinking and eliciting their opinions of the work, not just the content; competitions and games related to the lesson; illustrating a point with a video clip or photos; praising achievements, no matter how small, and basically using a variety to stimulate interest and activity. Naturally, I didn't always succeed, but when I witnessed some other teachers' styles, I felt somewhat vindicated.
George Bernard Shaw put it brilliantly when he said:
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child".
Alas, most modern mass schooling is the latter.
If you look beyond the clever word-play to its meaning, Dorothy Parker's play on the word 'horticulture' is profound:
"You can lead a whore to culture, but you can't make her think."
At the risk of incurring the wrath of the gods, I cannot deny that the phrase "kick-start" came to mind. That said, the best history mark I ever got was for an essay dashed off at the last moment: "Well done!" wrote the teacher, one Bayne-Jardine, "You have thought for yourself." I wish he'd advised me earlier. I'd have laid off learning fids of AJP Taylor's thinking. He was a man who thought terribly well for himself.
ReplyDeleteThere are many sides to an argument. The quotations used here are hugely persuasive, but it is in the nature of a quotation that it leaves one gasping for breath: for it brooks no argument. Just as we may suffer in the medical world from the white coat syndrome, so with quotations. What they are saying should always be questioned most carefully.
The use of a quotation to persuade does not prevent it from being questioned. The idea that it 'brooks no argument' is as subjective as the reader's ability to be objective. The power of the quotation is only in the value ascribed to it by the reader. My level of engagement with and knowledge of a subject as well as my interest in and admiration for an author all affect the persuading power of the quotation.
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