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Attitudes to teaching

  
 
Mike
10:50 / 18.01.03
I've come close to arguing with a few people about methods of teaching and motives for doing so. Here are a few relevant quotes from The Book of Fools at http://mike.jtbc.net/fools.htm

"All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education." - Sir Walter Scott

"Education is the leading of human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them."
-John Ruskin

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
-Buddha

"We cannot learn without pain."
-Aristotle

"As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found -- in himself."
-Erich Frohm

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."
-Helen Keller

"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
-Albert Einstein

"Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."
-Albert Camus

"If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things."
-Vincent Van Gogh

"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."
-Anais Nin

"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."
-David Lloyd George

"To insist on a spiritual practice that served you in the past is to carry the raft on your back after you have crossed the river."
-Buddha

"The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be. . . . Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others."
-Wilfred Peterson

"What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?"
-Dr. Robert Schuller

"The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of morality: Humility."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

"If you want to be happy, be."
-Leo Tolstoy

"We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart." - Sir Walter Scott
 
 
Wyrd
16:48 / 18.01.03
The quotes are all very interesting and commendable. But, what are your thoughts on the matter Evy? What is the exact nature of this discussion you are proposing?
 
 
Neville Barker
22:18 / 09.02.03
As I see it...
The teachers who have touched and helped me most in life (and there have been a few) have done so not inherently through the material they were being paid to teach me, I could learn that on my own most likely. What these people did most was inspire me. Some made me feel goood about myself and/or my work, others inspired me with their humanity. Still others showed me how a person could look at familiar things in a new way and see something completley different.
 
 
Sebastian
11:03 / 10.02.03
He who knows doesn't speak. He who speaks doesn't know.

Zen proverb.
 
 
Sebastian
11:04 / 10.02.03
Oh, great quotes, thanks. And Neville, couldn't agree more.
 
 
Wrecks City-Zen
18:17 / 10.02.03
"The wise man knows the power of silence" - Carlos Castenada

"Those who can't do, teach..."- Unknown
 
 
Rev. Wright
19:31 / 10.02.03
Those who can't.....

It is interesting to note that effective teaching can only exist within a professional, knowledgable and proficient individual.

Having left the rat race in London and focusing on my art, I have been using tutoring as means to an end concerning funds. This experience has led to my learning the knowledge and skills necessary to impart information, develop skills and facilitate opinion forming. This learning has made an positive impact with much of my artistc and esoteric practice, causing me to recognise and acknowledge alot of that which I take for granted. Humbling, is a word I would use.

I wrote a piece on Barbelith regarding the mentoring and individual learning path that I have trod, but it now manifests that I an being called upon to communicate to others. I can honmestly say that what has drawn me to except this position is the opportunity for me to learn from the contact that it will produce with others on a path of magickal practice, whether consciously or not. If teaching is perceived as a one directional model then teaching is not taking place, the motivation is based on a wholely different principle.

As mentioned about a previous post on mine I have truly wished to have had a consistant classic occult mentor, but instead I have walked with many consecutive instructors and shoulders. As I have made more apparent actions I have unconsciously passed on information and experience, but as the actions have grown then direct advice has been sought. Fair enough, I say, the more splashes one makes the more attention one draws. I'm just glad that currently is for support than for attack.
 
 
Big Picture
19:44 / 10.02.03
Deschooling Society

Have not actually got round to reading this yet. Should help with any argument against teaching, I believe. The literary equivalent of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).
 
 
slinkyvagabond
20:24 / 10.02.03
my best teachers were some people that I was supposed to be teaching *personal development* classes to. Oh, and that guy who fucked me over. Yes. I've learned the most when I've been feeling the most but on certain issues guidance is very helpful. Much in the same way that I wouldn't go and intuitively drive a car (as I've never done so before. People would die.) there are certain things I won't mess with without a little prior guidance. As you say...humility...

" There will be pleasure. Because knowledge is sexy. There will be pain. Because knowledge is torture" - Jeff Noon
 
 
reFLUX
21:17 / 10.02.03
i think the best way to 'teach' is to let the person you are educatin' learn for themselves with a few pointers along the way. aid them in their learning as it were, and not get in the way. of course this approach may not be so high on the curiculum of many schools which might be in some way why so many clones come from them. on the whole a school is there to serve the state rather than the pupils. i believe i have had good teachers and i have learnt things from them. but not all of my teachers come from schools, but some do.
maybe sometimes i have learnt things they have not intended me to learn. because something can be learnt from any situation.
 
 
Wrecks City-Zen
21:21 / 10.02.03
Yep...point in one direction and when they are looking that way...give em a smack in the back of the head.
 
 
Quantum
12:24 / 11.02.03
People learn differently. Some people learn best given the resources and time to do it themselves (I fall into this category) and object to interference and mind control. Some people learn best in groups, some by watching and imitating, some people need to be sat down and told by someone in authority. I agree with ...Crazy? about the importance of Mentoring and tutelage, teaching is a skill that should be respected. I looked for an occult mentor (a 'Master') for a long time, but found nobody I respected and trusted enough to give them that power over me. I'm self taught by necessity and predisposition, but I wouldn't deny anybody else their preferred method of learning.
Having said that, school is an state creche to teach people to obey and free their parents to be wage slaves. I think educational reform is long overdue and should be led by teachers, not politicians.
 
 
Devil's Avocado
15:08 / 11.02.03
A while ago I read of an anthropologist who spent over 20 years studying various Tibetan sects in and around Nepal and India.
His study showed how over time, the young male monks changed from a very cooperative, communal, non-competitive society to a more recognizable western, aggressive, competitive, outwardly sexual society as a result of their traditional teaching being replaced with western classroom techniques of teaching.

The irony of course is that the western classrooms and teaching styles were imposed on the Buddhist monks as conditions for getting donation money from westerners. Though well intentioned, the western donators believed the monks didn’t have ‘real schools’ and stipulated that the necessary funds would only be available if the monks instituted them.
 
 
penitentvandal
17:42 / 11.02.03
As a member of the 'Lith currently undergoing training to become an English teacher, I find this all very interesting. Especially given that my experience of teaching increasingly causes me doubts about the validity of the whole educational system...

Like, why do kids have to spend so much time every day at school? Why do they have to spend twelve years at school? Why is English a compulsory subject all the time, when it should only take about 50 hours of contact time to teach basic literacy, after which you can let a student decide for themselves, and learn technical vocabulary as and when they come across it? Why am I forced to ram Shakespeare down the throats of kids who won't like it during a vulnerable phase of their development, probably turning them off the work of one of the greatest writers in the history of literature forever? Come to think of it, why do I have to teach a set curriculum at all - why can't I set my own? Why do we have to have a national, standardised, statist system of examinations? Couldn't we let schools set their own exams and curricula, and let the market decide?

And yet - I'm doing my training in a deprived area. Most of the kids at this school have been raised in houses without a single book in them. Few of them can spell, and some can't even hold a pen properly. Against this, the school does sterling work, getting many kids exam passes in the A to C range, and working closely with employers to get kids into college or job-based training. All this is done pretty much under the aegis of the current system - but I can't help wondering if it's done more in spite of that system than because of it.

It's all very worrying. And the best thing is, I have to write an assignment about it, due in two weeks today. So I may as well ask you guys to help me out: what do you, in your innocence of educational doctrine, think are 'the essential requirements of a good secondary (high school, to you yanks) English programme'? Hell, should we even have one? Thoughts, please...
 
 
FatherDog
18:06 / 11.02.03
"A while ago I read of an anthropologist who spent over 20 years studying various Tibetan sects in and around Nepal and India. His study showed how over time, the young male monks changed from a very cooperative, communal, non-competitive society to a more recognizable western, aggressive, competitive,outwardly sexual society as a result of their traditional teaching being replaced with western classroom techniques of teaching."

No, it didn't.

It showed that, over time, the young male monks changed from a very cooperative, communal, non-competitive society to a more recognizable western, aggressive, competitive,outwardly sexual society.

The idea that Western teaching methods were the cause of this is a conclusion, and not necessarily an accurate one. I'd be willing to bet that that 20 year period didn't involve the introduction of Western teaching methods and no other change at all. There was increased presence of Western books, movies, music, and television in Tibet during that period, as well as changing cultural mores in the surrounding regions.

Now, if one group of monks in a region were taught with Western training methods, and one (the control group) with traditional methods, and the ones with Western methods changed to a more aggressive, overtly sexual, 'Western' society, and the control group did not... THAT would suggest that the teaching methods were responsible.

Correlation does not equal causation.
 
 
Quantum
08:25 / 12.02.03
"what do you, in your innocence of educational doctrine, think are 'the essential requirements of a good secondary (high school, to you yanks) English programme'? Hell, should we even have one? Thoughts, please..."
Creative writing techniques, English grammar, business/professional styles of writing, the lives and works of famous literary figures (current as well as historical), language in the media, cinema/TV criticism, the value of poetry and song, the history of English and it's linguistic roots (Etymology) and Spelling.
I think the most important requirement is involving the pupils in the decision about what to learn, something that the National Curriculum etc. denies- in fact even the Teacher can't decide what to teach, which is madness.
re:monks, the correlation between the introduction of western teaching techniques and the westernisation of their behaviour is significant. Although it is not the sole cause, it is a causal factor (or at least an indicator), and is one element of a larger programme of 'westernisation' that influences the Tibetan's behaviour. Ironically the major influence on Tibet in the last twenty years (I would argue) is China, so perhaps westernisation is the wrong word. Capitalisation?
*threadrot* Has anybody heard 'Last train to Lhasa' by Banco de Gaia?
 
 
illmatic
09:10 / 12.02.03
Too busy to write something coherent but here's a link - Summerhill
 
  
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