There is no such thing as teaching!

I received an email from my mom the other day.  She always sends me tidbits that she finds interesting and inspiring to read.  I love reading them because they spark lots of good conversation between the two of us.  She sent me this email, and what a risk to send to someone in the teaching profession without knowing their own philosophies on teaching.  :)  My mom knows me well, and was willing to take the risk.  Education is such a controversial topic these days and to think that there is no such thing as teaching could go right to the top of every one's "don't spend any more money on education list".  Here is the catch.......


My University where I received my Teaching Education was right in line with these thoughts and beliefs of "There is no such thing as teaching".  There are teachers, and there are students but no perfect method or one size all approach to being a conduit of information.  The Student learns the information through personal inquiry and through books and experimentation.  I was taught to create a learning environment.  There are many different methods of instruction to help construct that learning environment for every student.  The Teacher must have all of their goals and objectives for learning and methods for teaching in place.  They scout different learning styles of leaners so that they may gear instruction to those learners.  If the teacher is doing all of those things, here is the bald-face truth in life.  The old adage, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink"; applies here.   No matter how much work you put in, we are all creating learning and interest for children, and they are in charge of the results.  If we create these environments well and get them excited about learning, hopefully we have created lifelong learners.  Once they leave the classroom, they have to be excited about learning in the outside world.  There is no environmental control outside of the classroom.  So poke and prod and demean education, but also think: They have home and school to create these opportunities to love learning.  Extend and enrich their environment as much as you can, but they are in charge of their own learning.  


Here is what the subscribed for newsletter she received said:




"'There Is No Such Thing As Teaching'… I ran across the title quotation in a story told by Monty Roberts, the famous "horse whisperer," in which he recounts something he learned from his best teacher that he later applied to his work with horses. It's a rather shocking assertion to say that there is 'no such thing as teaching'… especially to those of us who have given our lives to the profession. Here is the full quotation in context…

Sister Agnes Patricia was the most influential teacher I ever knew. What I will always remember about her is her statement that there is no such thing as teaching — only learning. She believed that no teacher could ever teach anyone anything. Her task as a teacher was to create an environment in which the student can learn. Knowledge, she told us, standing very straight in her long black habit, her face framed by her white wimple, pointed at the top like the spire of a cathedral, needs to be pulled into the brain by the student, not pushed into it by the teacher. Knowledge is not to be forced on anyone. The brain has to be receptive, malleable, and most important, hungry for that knowledge.

"How closely related that is to some of the 'eternal verities' that guide Golden Apple's Inquiry Science Institute: 'Teaching and learning are not synonymous.' 'We can teach, and teach well, without having students learn.' 'Knowledge is seldom transferred intact from the mind of the teacher to the mind of the student.' 'Knowledge is CONSTRUCTED in the mind of the learner.'

"If these assertions are true, what's a teacher to do, particularly in the current high stakes test environment? One of the most difficult lessons for us to learn as teachers is to step back from being the asker of all questions and the font of all answers, and to let students explore, question, design, ponder, and grow in their own way and in their own time. To an extent, some of this is beyond our control, given the rigid testing schedules and prescribed curricula most teachers must follow. But there is always a significant portion of the classroom experience that is within our control, and that's where our professional responsibility kicks in. Because the struggle is more often with our own need to control and direct the learning process than with external directives. But when we can challenge that need in ourselves for the benefit of our students, something wonderful happens…

"A counter point is that everyone is a 'teacher' by how they live and what they communicate but it doesn't stop there for it must be converted to learning by hard thinking." – Paid-up subscriber JA