I think that Gongs book "Learning and Teaching for Exponential Growth" has been my favorite reading so far. From the beginning when Gong explains that learning is a three person situation with the teacher and learner gaining knowledge from eachother and then teaching someone else their new knowledge, completing the triangle, I felt I had already known these theories. How many times do we hear speakers at church express that they feel they learn more as the teacher than as those who are being taught because they have to study the material more carefull? It's very true that if we all were to take the knowledge that we gain in the attitude of teaching someone that information later we would research it more thoroughly and retain the information more completely. My only problem is that it's hard for me to be that compassionate about everything I am learning.
Also this week we had our second Jr. High visit and I feel this experience was almost contrasting to the experience I had last week; aside from the diversity in kids. This week I observed Jay Anderson and another techer who I can't figure out how to spell, but his students call him Mr. B. Both teachers were very organizeed and even though they joked with the kids it was in a much more structured situation. Mr. B had a layout of the next 5-6 projects for the kids so they knew what to expect and Mr. Anderson had a similar schedule with different projects planned.
I noticed that each teacher did something to inspire thinking at the binning of class that was just a little fun for the kids. Jay Anderson puts a riddle up at the beginning of everyday and Mr. B puts a geometric type of brain teasser up to get the kids attention and to get them to start warming up their thinking caps for class to start. It's a good and effective routine and I also noticed that it took some of the potential monotony of the class.
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