From my recent class in finance, I learned an important concept about the art of teaching.
Four months ago, I almost died in my accounting class. The terminology and concepts made little sense to me, and I found myself asking tens of questions for every hour of study. My instructor was an angel and would take each of my questions and answer them in complete form. I was in heaven.
In my finance class however, I would get answers akin to, "The answer is in the book." And that was that. Naturally I was not happy with the instructor. Yet by the end of the term I realized something odd. Because the prof gave me so little information, I found myself working ten times as hard to learn the material. Whereas when I had the answers spoon-fed to me during accounting, I didn't really have to put up much of an effort.
It then dawned upon me -- the less you teach, the more one learns. This of course does not translate to supporting the idea that teachers should be lazy. Giving the student the right lesser amount of information is better than handing over the right more amount of information. Thus I shall end right here.
One reader thought that here I was expressing a conservative-party opinion of "sink or swim" or "survival of the fittest." Nope. This morning I'm reading a nursery school handbook on interacting with young children that says: "Try to lead the child to a solution by suggesting alternatives. Ask 'What would happen if you tried ...' rather than using the 'This is how to do it' approach." All professors should spend some time teaching in nursery schools.
Posted by maeda at November 4, 2005 10:38 PM