They know that learning is led by the student, not the teacher.
I know an ineffective teacher. He didn’t set out to be ineffective but he was. He was passionate about teaching and sacrificed a lot of his time to teaching his students. He loved teaching so much that he was always looking for opportunities to teach. He gave his students articles to read, asked them to make presentations, all with the goal of helping them to learn.
Yet, his students disliked him.
Why? Many students didn’t know why this guy who was very eager to help was repulsive to them. I decided to try to figure out why this was so. After taking some time to observe the teacher and reflect on his approach, I discovered that though he was eager to teach, he made teaching all about him. He didn’t take the time to find out what the student’s desires and passions were so that he could come along side and help them learn in the very areas that they were already eager to learn. Instead, he disregarded what students thought. I remember one student who expressed interest in learning a specific topic. In his passion, he ignored that student’s request and instead gave him papers to read on a topic that he wasn’t interested to learn.
The good news is that after receiving feedback from multiple students, the teacher’s boss sat down with him, coached him and helped him adapt his teaching style to become student focused. He immediately became a rock star!
Effective teachers teach along the student’s interests and passions.
Good teachers inspire before they teach on a topic. Inspiring causes hunger and thirst.
Good teachers both perceive themselves and act as servants to the students, not bosses.
