Sitting in my high school teacher in-service today, I listened to how education within the classroom is evolving and the one constant I kept hearing is that it is the “teacher” who is the motivator for student learning. Teachers are now expected to “partner” with their students in the learning process. Instead of the “sage on the stage” teaching pedagogy teachers need to evolve to the “guide on the side.” So how do we as teachers help our students make the valuable connections without the direct teaching of knowledge? That is the question that plagued everyone. If students are not taught how to think or where to go for resources to find information, how will they learn? Kids are not hardwired with information like a computer is with programs. That was the burning question in everyone’s minds and so the quest for the answer began.
Discussions first began in small groups by subject area and then moved on to lunch among mixed groups of teachers.
The consensus found was that kids need to be “modeled to” by their teachers of how to answer the questions posed to them. They also need to be taught how to use the resources available to them to find the answers to the Socratic questions given by the teacher. Grant it, kids are inherently inquisitive and very knowledgeable about using a computer, but the art of how to go about answering questions is still a skill that must be “scaffold” to the learner. It was also agreed upon that the basic concepts of these skills need to be taught at a young age so when they get to high school the skill is habitual in nature. It is from there the passion for learning can be further nurtured and developed.
Like the Chinese Proverb states, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”
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