What it means to teach – and sod learning!

Posted on | October 13, 2007 | No Comments

“I’m still going to teach primarily through lecture in an ancient, top-down, one-sided way. I’m going to pour out my enthusiasm and my passion, laboring in a field filled with rocky soil and pockets of rich earth. And for the most part, I won’t be around to see the harvest. That’s what it means to teach.”

So writes Hugo Schwyzer in Inside Higher Ed.

I have referred already to the ’smokestack school’ – we have to remember that we still have models of ‘teaching’ in our higher education institutions that are based on even older, even less relevant, paradigms than those that inform what goes on in our schools.

Schwyzer should really finish with: “…that’s what I mean by teaching.” He isn’t really bothered whether any of his charges actually learn anything, nor does he offer any insights into what it means to learn.

Thanks to Dan Butin in Britannica Blog for the link.

Technorati Tags: teaching, learning, britannica blog, inside higher ed, dan butin, hugo schwyzer