Need

Reciprocally, the good teacher teaches at the point of the learner's need. The good teacher lets the other person work, and "teaches" not by continually looking over the novice's shoulder in critique, as that will freeze the novice, but by being present for questions and for advice and for demonstration as the novice requests them. The great problem with most educational schemes, such as mandatory schooling from ages 5 to 16, is that they frequently present information that the student has no drive to learn at the time it's presented. Schools invent arbitrary schemes, such as standardized tests, attended by all kinds of threats about the perils of doing poorly, to frighten students into paying attention to words and numbers that they have no immediate incentive to comprehend. When Mark Twain wrote, "Never let school get in the way of your education," that's what he was talking about. The agendas of school systems, at whatever level, are set by the purveyors, not the students.

Knowing this, wise curriculum designers, based on experience, work hard to predict what students will be receptive to learning and when, but every teacher knows that most such predictions are wrong for many people much of the time, no matter how hard the teacher works. And, make no mistake, it is the teacher, not anyone else in the system, who is in the best position to know what the actual student needs at any given time. Meanwhile, most learners, on school time or outside it, are avidly pursuing what they feel they need to know at the time, regardless of the school agenda. That is why the most successful teachers in any system, at whatever grade level, are those able to connect whatever the prescribed curriculum might be to the student's sense of what s/he needs to learn at the time. This synthesis requires great flexibility by teachers and the willingness to listen to students.

By the way, if you want to read a good book about education, read Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, as detailed and exciting a look at "teaching at the point of need" as I have read.

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