by Nick Lowry
I have known teachers who over teach – they are helpful and giving — serve everything up on silver platters but who consequently have built very dependent students. Such are popular teachers; their students will love them and feel confident that they have “learned” and that they “know the subject”. But there is no strength in such teaching. In fact, the students can only regurgitate the same answers they have learned. And left to their own devices, they find that they are sadly weak—such students can imitate and replicate, but find it hard to create. They have put the teachers head on top of their own. They have not learned to think for themselves.
I have known teachers who starve their pupils– who show shadows and never tell the secrets. They will give nothing away. Here, the student must beg for scraps or barring that, he must learn to steal it all— in the worst cases, if student gets close to the goal then the teacher throws up smoke screens – a “new way it has always been done”—obfuscation and control. Baffle them with the bullshit and keep them on the hook—being hooked is uncomfortable and students here feel stupid and frustrated, lost and abandoned—adrift. They can feel like continual failures who are always just lucky to sit in the presence of the great one. Their self esteem dwindles. They may stumble on some reality, but continue to stumble because they lack any way to verify, for each time the teacher will prune them back to the nub.—Stunted growth is predictable.
Really great teachers go both ways at once – they follow the seasons of learning –they cultivate the ground of learning—tend carefully to the young shoots and are generous with the nutrients but are careful to not over water or over fertilize the soil. They allow the students to grow organically and grapple with the subject – importantly they are not too quick to step in and disclose the whole truth. They maintain a little mystery. They give clues and pointers but clearly put the burden of the education back on the head of the student. They reveal one corner and then wait for the student to bring back the other three to make the whole square. When it is time to roll out the truth they roll it out , but when it is time to hang back , watch and wait, look an listen — they abide. Such teaching requires patience, finesse and insight – but results in empowering the students—in fostering a real grasp of the matter— an authentic realization of the subject in the student’s whole being – such students gain real mastery.