Having to teach a subject is when you truly learn it. I remember the first class I taught on quadratic equations. I knew how to solve a quadratic because I had been taught the process, so thought it should be no problem to teach the topic.

The first task was to create a few equations and work through the solutions. Certainly, pick simple ones so the answers are easy, and the answers work in front of the class! I quickly learned that was not as simple as imagined. Finding "perfect" examples was difficult. And perhaps providing slick examples would not well-serve my students. Life is not perfect.

It took me six hours to prepare for a 50 minute class. The presentation went well, but not glowingly. My students asked questions, and I found myself sharing the experience as a learner, not just the teacher. It was that interaction which solidified my understanding. I presented that class [and subsequent ones on quadratics] dozens of times over the years. I always gained new insights or understandings from the questions of my students.

I have learned most from my students. There is magic in the interaction between teacher and learner. It defies quantitative description or explanation. There are moments during which the teacher becomes the learner -- gaining insights because of questions, insights or observations made by participants.

Perhaps a good attitude is to view your students as colleagues who are sharing the discovery process?

J. Michael Adams: Thoughts on Education

My Assumptions about Education

The first definition of a university is its faculty.
The second is the accomplishments of its graduates.

Men should be taught,
As if you taught them not.
And new things propos'd
As if things forgot
Benjamin Franklin, circa 1758

I believe that the teacher's challenge in evaluating students is less to separate the gifted from the ordinary than to find the gifts of the ordinary.
Dr. C. Roland Christensen, Harvard Business School

The secret of education is respecting the pupil.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Email address: president@fdu.edu