Teaching Them How To Teach Themselves

Abstract

One of the encouraging signs on the educational landscape just now is a renewed interest in teaching. We seem to be remembering again that knowledge and thinking about knowledge do not come automatically.

If we ask ourselves: what is the very best teaching or learning experience we have ever had, chances are the answer will not be some time when we sat and listened to even a very great lecturer, but it will be a time when something so inspired our interest as to overcome the natural human tendency to inertia, and we went searching for answers. And the reason we remember those moments favorably is because we come out of such experiences feeling more competent to learn what we need to learn. It is just such learning experiences that start people on the road to a lifetime career, or that give rise to significant new ideas.