When you spoon-feed someone, you make it easy for them to passively munch on their mediocre existence without making any effort to learn and grow.
This is not what learning and education is about. In order to learn and grow you need to think for yourself.
Teachers can help you to do this, but they can’t do the thinking for you. And nor should they.
Spoon-feeding in the
long run teaches us nothing
but the shape of the spoon.[symple_spacing size=”10″] ~ E.M. Forster (🐦 Tweet Me!)
◀ Click HERE for a BIGGER Version! ▶
This powerful quote extends a metaphor into a moral lesson, and is all the more impressive for it. In the same way that giving a man a fish will teach him to look to you for more fish, feeding your students the answers rather than getting them to work them out for themselves will produce dependent learners who rely on outside help to move forward.
To encourage original ideas, powerful insights and, ultimately, deeper understanding, teachers should encourage independent thinking and ask more questions of their students than they provide ready-made answers on a plate.
Indeed, I passionately believe that it is to a great extent by asking students to resolve problems through asking questions that we encourage and enable true learning to take place.
The teacher asks questions of the learner because often the teacher does know more about the subject being studied than their students and is actually imagining themselves in the student’s less enlightened heads.
However, the true teacher should also be continually learning. For me, the day I lose my love for new ideas and deeper understanding will be the day I start fading away… One of the best ways to do this is to have a humble, open and non-judgemental mind, a curious spirit and of course to be asking questions constantly.
In this way regular questions serve the teacher in two ways; they stimulate their students think and they provide hints as to how the students are progressing.
So, “What do you think about that?”, and it’s not a rhetorical question!
~ Sab Will
[symple_column size=”one-half” position=”first” fade_in=”true”]
[/symple_column]
[symple_column size=”one-half” position=”last” fade_in=”true”]
[/symple_column]
Notes on ‘SCRIBBLISMS Unloving Spoonful’
[symple_spacing size=”10″]
Scribblisms is where we have fun sharing and thinking about some great learning quotes from down the years. Feel free to join in the discussion – the more the merrier.
Rainbow English School is a non-profit educational organisation based in France. We aim to improve the level of English and the effectiveness of teaching in general. We work with teachers and educational organisations to help them adapt and personalise their teaching methods.
Our method and approach is based on the latest scientific research into how we best memorise, recall and usefully apply k
nowledge. We provide innovative tools and techniques which people can immediately use in their current learning or teaching situation. And we have fun doing it!
© 2016 Rainbow English School / Sab Will