Teaching - Playing A Brick Game

Teaching can be executed in various styles and methods. But what constitutes a good lesson? Is there a benchmark for it? I would think it is influenced greatly by the teacher's perception of the lesson outcome. Many tutors bear grudges even before starting the lesson, for example complaining about the students, the work load, and sometimes even the meagre pay, etc. These tutors are normally those that emerge unsuccessful in attaining a satisfactory outcome in teaching. Why? A misaligned mind leads to contorted thoughts and an under performing aptitude. So it boils down to having passion in teaching, or at the very least take it in your stride. But once again, many teachers still fail to deliver no matter how hard they try. In my honest opinion, i think the root of the problem lies in that we do not have an objective understanding of the reception of knowledge.

Learning, to me, is always a self discovery process. The feeding of information from others, ie teaching, has a limit onto how much the student would absorb. There is a learning curve as people always speak about. But the limiting factor to this curve is our mental processor. A processor that processes information in a way unique to oneself. A teacher would not be able to effectively pass on knowledge to a student if he or she does not have a rough idea how the information is assimilated by the student. On many occasions, teachers felt that they did all the could in presenting the concept and curriculum, but fail to grasp how meaningful these content meant to the students. I can give u an example:

A teacher administers his usual routine teaching to a class of students. At the end of the lesson, he proceeded somewhat comfortably to the question and answer session and began opening the floor to the usual quiet class. So any questions? He asked. Then from one corner, among the perplexed faces, a boy raised his hand and sounded off his qn. The teacher gave it a thought, and was then energised to provide an explanation. I want to direct my focus at this junction right now. Has the teacher really helped the student as much as he could by providing a solution? I would only dare to say partial.

What has gone wrong? The teacher didnt address the process which led to the question, but merely satisfying what the student queried about. Is teaching all about the superficialities? I'm afraid its not. If all lessons turn out to be in this manner, we would be breeding stagnancy in our education standards. The reason why some students turn out to be smarter than the rest is not always proportional to the effort they put in. Its like playing a brick game, u know those electronic ones with different shapes falling from the top. The student's understanding of the topic is the layout of the game at the bottom, while the teacher's solution is the falling brick at the top. If the teacher doesnt dwell into the intricacies of the students mind, he or she would not be able to orientate the piece of brick correctly into the entire layout. Be mindful that where the brick is laid, how it is laid, and sometimes how fast it is laid is of significant concern to the development of the individual, or in the case of the brick game, the sustainability of it.

Some students end the game quickly, in other words game over, because their bricks are tragically misplaced such that there is no continuability in the bottom layer of bricks in the game. In academic sense, they cant make sense of what they are learning though information has been fed. More accurately, the are not able to grasp the entire puzzle that has been fed to them bit by bit. In this case they give up. There is a limit. And test not the limits of an eager scholar, i beg of you. Learning is a life long process, please do not construct a dead end for them. Its a right to live.

That is precisely the reason teachers are valuable. Their jobs influence lives of students extensively and tremendously. It is incumbent on the beholder of wisdom to disseminate knowledge responsibly. And being a teacher isn't as easy as one think, if you are really passionate about the performance of students.