My friend brings me Howard Hendricks’ book, Teaching to Change Lives, and I’m struck by this quote by educator John Milton Gregory. He writes:
“The true function of the teacher is to create the most favorable conditions for self-learning. . . True teaching is not that which gives knowledge, but that which stimulates pupils to gain it. One might say that he teaches best who teaches least.”
John Milton Gregory
I think about what it means to create “favorable conditions for learning.” I think about how to engage both freshmen and senior college students with relevant, impactful, and useful material that makes them want and need more for themselves. I redesign lesson plans for greater buy-in and promised pay-off. Sometimes I ask myself, “What changes if I’m not in the room?” If my presence as a teacher doesn’t matter–and the material just speaks for itself–there’s no point in being there. There’s no teaching happening. So what am I really doing? Maybe this: A teacher enlivens the knowledge and brings an authentic, vulnerable experience of it to the classroom. A teacher sets the direction and opens the gate, but if she hasn’t inspired anyone to take the journey, she’s not teaching.
I think, too, about modeling self-learning. A self-learner values growth, change, improvement, goal-setting, and reflection. A self-learner isn’t stagnant or solely relying on experience as a form of expertise. What a journey the teaching life is! It doesn’t end, and I’m thankful that Parker Palmer’s words still ring true: “We teach what we most need to learn.”
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