April 13, 2007
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Anti Teaching
Came across this great post by a professor on “anti teaching”:
Teaching is about providing good information. Anti-teaching
is about inspiring good questions. Since all good thinking begins with
a good question, it struck me that if we are ultimately trying to
create “active lifelong learners” with “critical thinking skills” and
an ability to “think outside the box” it might be best to start by
getting students to ask better questions. Unfortunately, I didn’t know
where to start. I have read and heard a great deal of advice on how to
ask good questions of students – non-rhetorical, open-ended, etc. – but
nobody has ever told me anything about how to get students to ask good
questions.I taught a course last semester at a local university, and ran into this issue myself. This professor’s conclusion totally resonated with my own limited experience:
I eventually came to the conclusion that “teaching” is a hindrance to
learning. The word, “teacher” in itself suggests that learning requires
teaching. In fact, the best learning almost always occurs in the
absence of a teacher, for it is then that students are free to pursue
with great passion the questions that are meaningful and relevant to
their own lives.I’m thinking about teaching the course again, but I would do it very differently. I would try to become the anti-teacher described above. My last class was a seminar/lecture format, whereas my next one would be a workshop with ongoing student projects. Kind of a cross between Project Runway and The Paper Chase.
I have done a lot of interviewing, and I’m always surprised at how poorly the US education system prepares people to think for their own, and to ask good questions. But now that I’ve been a professor, I’m humbled by how hard it is to be a great teacher/anti-teacher.
Have you ever had a teacher or professor who inspired you to think for your own, and to ask hard questions? How did they reach you?
Comments (18)
I would be a bad anti-teacher. I like telling people what to do
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Of course I try to stimulate brain activity by asking questions to see if they can figure it out first. But if they can’t figure it out, I’ll give them the answer
My grade 10 History teacher was brilliant. Very freaky and told us all these terrible things that happened in the Second World War. I live in South Africa and he told us a lot of what was really going on politically that no one else would tell us. He had a good way of making you stand in someone elses shoes. Sadly Mr Klopper shot and killed himself the following year.
“and I’m always surprised at how poorly the US education system prepares people to think for their own”
i’ve always thought that school should cultivate the ability to learn and to think freely, rather than pound people senseless with a shit ton of useless facts which are necessary to know only long enough to pass the class. the U.S. education system stifles potential, intelligence, creativity, ingenuity, and general mental evolution.
does anything i just said make sense? i just reread it. see? i can’t even properly express my own thoughts. damn U.S. education system…
I think our whole approach to schooling is backwards. Assessment testing, grade levels based upon age, cramming as much information in as quickly as possible to look good on assessment tests…these artifical constructs do not encourage learning or actual thinking. In fact, they more than likely discourage it. They kill the exicitement, the eureka! moments and the student’s ability to follow passions and individual…these are the things that encourage us to become life long learners. In the instances where I was encouraged to think and questions….as you stated above….that is where real learning happened. I still have passion and interest in those subjects, many years later. I can’t say that I was necessarily interested before I took those classes, but the passion and enthusiasm of the instructor was contagious.
I graduated from college when I was pregnant with my second child. As it came time to make decisions about school for our kids, we opted to homeschool. Some observations, having been a teacher now for the past ten years.
– Children like to learn…learning is the default setting, but they learn best at their own pace. There is no one size fits all and when we try and apply that maxim, kids give up. They quit. They think they can’t, when really they just aren’t ready.
– If we let them follow what they are passionate about, they learn easily…even things like math and grammar. My daughter is an avid writer. As her skill progressed, so did her hunger to learn how to write more proficiently. It is pretty gratifying to come to your computer and find that your child has been researching verb agreement and tense. Good questions are generated by genuine interest in the subject matter, not just the desire to make a grade.
– If I am excited about the subject, they will be too. They know when I am faking, too.
– I encourage personal responsibility…no spoon feeding answers, notes or “teaching the test”. And if they miss questions on the test, we work through all wrong answers, researching and understanding why they were wrong. When I was in an upper level chemistry class, I would take the test, turnin my paper and then wait for everybody to be finished. Then I would ask my professor all the questions that stumped me during the test. She would have me go to the chalk board and work the problem again…sometimes I would have missed it on the actual test and then catch my own error when I worked in on the board. Ten years later, I am teaching my older kids chemistry and I *remember* how to work a titration equation! I should call Dr. C and tell her that, huh?
– I learned best in situations where there was a great deal of genuine interest invested in my work by the instructor…one reason that homeschooling is so successful. It is one on one, hands on with direct, in depth feedback and discussion. The word mentoring (as opposed to teacher) comes to mind. Like my chem professor was interested, she took the time to invest herself in my learning process.
I recognize that homeschooling is not practical or possible for everyone, but I think the whole education system needs to be turned on its ear. It is unfortunate that the habits that get kids through grades K-12 are already entrenched by the time people enter college. The university system is much more flexible and therefore nurturing to the learning process…and I can think of a handful of teachers who really did encourage actual thinking. Lessons could be learning from the anti-teachers of the world, I think. I am an anti-teacher, I guess.
Excellent blog…a subject that is very near and dear to my heart!
None. In all of my education from grade school until the very end of my master degree, I have not met a teacher who antiteaching. They all tried to stuff what they know into my head.
The US Educational system has morphed into an extreme form of pragmatism, where the end result is maximum output in a field with the least amount of overhead cost (i.e,. efficiency) and/or maintaining the existing level of output (i.e. management including teaching).
The above quotes have some heavy unproved premises (i.e., good reason or statistics plus good analysis).
ex#1″if we are ultimately trying to create…” Really. Is that why the average college student doesn’t know basic political theory, even if its just US government?
ex#2 “the best learning almost always occurs in the absence of a teacher..” Says who? What research publication is he quoting.
An unprovable or invalid premise is one of my errors that demonstrate a lack of “critical thinking skills”. It often leads to a “hasty generalization” about the conclusions. Apparently the above teacher is a victim of his own criticism
He should of been paying more attention to his philosophy professors who have been utilizing “anti-teaching” for centuries. It’s called the Socratic Method.
The best way to learn is to be lead to discovery, but allowed to make the discovery itself on your own. That way the experience is YOURS, not something someone just gave you or told you about.
That’s why I love the Montessori method and its approach to learning and education– it allows the child to be his/her own teacher. The teacher (or guide, as they’re often called) gives the students the tools to get at new information, but then leave them alone to get at the information on their own. It results in much deeper understanding of the material, and also in individuals who learn how to ask those important questions.
The only teachers I’ve had who did that were not part of the public school system.
I think that education has, over time, become more and more dumbed down. I think that a major factor in this is having a set curriculum…. you’ve already mandated what the kids are going to be taught, and you won’t let them stray out of it. This means that the slow/stupid kids struggle to keep up, and the smart/fast kids are like laa laaaaa boring. That was me. By fifth grade I had already learned algebra, yet in class we were doing only arithmetics and pre-algebra. We did pre-algebra again in sixth grade. Then we did it again in seventh grade, due to some quirk with our system. Sure, I got good grades really easily, but it was very boring. The same went for English. By the time I finished middle school, I had already read a lot of the “classics,” and I read the required reading for 12th graders for fun. Other people in my class couldn’t even read a sentence out loud without stumbling. School curricula only appeal to the average student, but the abilities of the average student are decreasing due to many factors.
A factor related to the set curriculum is standardized testing. Teachers feel obligated to help their students do well on the tests, so they teach them only what will be on the test. This is especially obvious in AP courses. For example, when you take AP English, you only read/discuss/analyze the books given. You don’t have much time to stray outside of the set topics. You don’t even have much time to cover all the material on an AP, so you have to rush and push the students through. In the end, they can do well on the AP by regurgitating memorized facts and axioms. Do they know anything in breadth though? Will they remember it a year from the test? Doubtful. My AP chem teacher always quashed questions by either saying, “The AP wants you to answer it this way,” or “That’s not on the AP, maybe we will talk about it in June.”
Meanwhile, teachers and administrators, in an effort to keep students’ attention in a multimedia world, are trying to make teaching into entertainment with games, bright colors, and oversimplified explanations. This both degrades the quality of the teaching as well as increases the cost.
my current history teacher-government-is pretty awesome, in an aggravating way. He teaches the lessons and then has us write papers that may or may not have to do with the topic he just taught us, which he only gives us a sentence or two worth of instructions for. because of previous teachers doing the same thing, I’ve pushed myself to answer any and all possible questions that could tear apart my paper-and learned things I would not have otherwise.
The best teachers I’ve had in my life (there were only really two of them) both merely introduced me to ideas (including authors, resources, and different art media) then stood back and let me play.
Most classes aren’t designed for learning but rather passing tests. These so called “smart” students are usually students that learned to know just enough.
he took a TRUE interest in me as a person!
I just hope someday I can actually inspire my students to think. And make them WANT to think. That would be the first step.
Something that has worked to make me think is this: when I asked a question in class, some professors would turn the question back around and say, “What do you think the answer is?” Half of the time, you have an opinion about what the answer might be, or you have a couple of lines of thinking you’re debating between. I think turning the question around forces the student to evaluate and then re-evaluate what they know, and reposition their question as necessary.
A couple of teachers I had urged us to spend a little time every day trying to piece together what we were learning in our classes; one in particular urged us to look for the connections between our classes, and reflect on how what we learned one day connected to what we learned the next. I think a good teacher encourages that process, and helps make the connections by describing the reasons behind things, rather than just stating how things are. I think when you have a better idea of how things fit together, you can ask better questions.
well john, my perspective here is that the love of learning starts in the home. formal paid teachers are only one component of preparing a child to learn. so the trick might be to discover how to get parents people in the lives of children can contribute to that. after all, students are only in class rooms a few hours a day 5 days a week for maybe 40 weeks a year. that can’t be the only teaching/learning time. do i know the trick? not exactly, but i would hope that this call for better teaching is integrated with more responsible parenting.
This is not a question about private versus public schools, is it? Because I had plenty of teachers from grades six through college (all public) who were very skilled at creating vibrant, lively, educational and engaging dialogs in class. I will never forget reading a short story in grade 6 about Charles Drew, and how he died because the hospital wouldn’t let him in. Our teacher was a black man, and this class of middle class white kids tried to guess why. It was a terribly powerful lesson to learn, that this doctor who discovered plasma and blood transfusions would die from loss of blood…because he was black. That’s just one example. I remember great debates all through school, from whether Holden Caulfield was a spoiled brat to debates about whether the Louisiana Purchase was the biggest moment in American history…to ethical discussions about whether any specific crime/sin is always wrong, no matter what…I’m pretty positive that some classes, like biology and geography, were more cut and dry and factual, but I think students (and parents of younger children) need to seek out and demand these other kinds of learning experiences. It’s not so much about teachers asking questions, but about creating a looser environment where students and teachers all are discussing, questioning, and exchanging ideas.
As a public school teacher, I would have you DEFINITELY look into the Socratic Method. It is being used in one of our magnet schools here in Chattanooga, and the students at that public school are going to prestigious universities like Vanderbilt and Emory on full scholarships. And yes, they are being taught how to ask good questions.
I had a prof last semester who didn’t teach anything, instead he just asked if we had any questions about the chapter. And of course, we didn’t say anything. He wasn’t exactly anti-teaching… it was just bad. He was looking for us to prompt him on what to teach. It was frustrating. Actually, he would just get frustrated and end class.
If you’re going to anti-teach, do it to where the students WANT to ask questions. It’s especially helpful in controversial subjects.
Good anti-teaching begins with a good, pointed question in a specific direction (although not always, I just like it best.)