When I started teaching in public schools, I very much had the notion that I would speak words and the students would learn.
This notion disappeared quickly.
Then I tried making the students use their hands to do physics. This was VERY MUCH more successful. So I pretty much limited my lectures to 10 minutes, and constructed the rest of the class around them doing things.
The beauty and the terror of having students “do things” is that all hell breaks loose. You have never imagined ways that all your equipment could be destroyed until you have actually put it into students’ hands. At first this destruction angered me. I soon came to realize that no one can understand something until they have broken it. I now see that this is one of the deepest truths of our incarnations into Earth.
Why do parents leave their kids with me all day? I used to take that for granted. Now I am confused by it. This public schooling thing did not much exist in America before the mid 1800’s. Were people just stupid before that?
Learning is a creative process, and cannot be scripted. I have many times run the experiment, where I did actually in one class convey something to the students, then I try the same method on the next classes and it all fails. Teaching and Learning are creative processes. This pretty much nullifies most all standardized testing.
What do I mean, “creative process”?
How was the blue glass in Chartres cathedral made? Do a little digging, and you will find that the particular blue which is only found at Chartres can only be made when the glassmaker gets into a creative state that includes a recognition of their own weaknesses as and also the yearning for what they wish to become. That might sound a little strange to our “modern” ears, which have been habituated to only hear sounds that are mechanical, and scoff at melodies permeated with the Divine. Yet this glass making experiment has been repeated, and hence belongs on the shelf of scientific knowledge. See the many works of Schwaller de Lubitz for more material on this.
Teaching in this “certain state” is not easy to define. This state does not include judgement or impatience. This is shocking. Let’s try it on ourselves. Today I will not be impatient with myself, and I will not be judgmental to myself.
My students learn very little as a group, and learn much more when I am sitting with them. Of course this goes against the factory mill picture of education, where thousands of young people can be shoved through a school and come out the other end “educated”. Sitting with individual students for 10, 20, 30 minutes in a class is scandalous. I am certain I could be fired for this, and no one would speak on my defense.
What am I actually teaching them?
I am lucky that my University was relatively small, so the professors had time for us. We also did a lot of experimentation (not enough). The biggest help was them explaining things like "When we say the electron has no structure, what we really mean is we don't know what it is, so we just idealize it mathematically so we can use it in our theoretical framework based on our current understanding". Also - they would never scoff at an idea, but rather would encourage students to pursue these different avenues of thought.
I also agree that standardized testing is useless. I know many that could pass the Physics GRE, but couldn't put an experiment together for the life of themselves. Tests only test memorization, not actual problem solving abilities.
Would you tell your story on The Meaning Code? I have a conversation coming up next week with Michael Levin and just published one with Wolfgang Smith, linked here so you can get an idea of my channel. https://youtu.be/8NWHGX53agc