TEACHING AND LEARNING

“Teaching may be compared to selling commodities. No one can sell unless someone buys” John Dewey

As an educator, this is an important and relevant question. The terms “teaching” and “learning” are two sides of the same coin. The intention of a teacher in teaching students is to facilitate learning; this, in the words of Scheffler, is known as the intentionality criterion. But what is learning? And how can we measure the effectiveness of teaching if learning has or has not taken place?

Different opinions exist regarding teaching and learning. It would be beneficial if students were involved in constructing their own learning objectives. I am aware of a few schools that are doing this, and the results are impressive. In my perspective, teaching should aim at fostering learning, rather than merely expecting a student to provide a designated answer to a question. Piaget believed in developmental learning, which leads to or demonstrates structural changes in thinking, and this is what I advocate.

Learning is often viewed as the process of acquiring knowledge or skills. However, measuring the success of teaching based solely on exam results can be problematic. For instance, consider a scenario I encountered: during a revision week at one of the schools where I was teaching, I asked students to narrate a topic of their choice from that term and present it to the whole class, ensuring that no one repeated what their classmates had said. I was impressed that every student contributed; they had learned. However, when exams arrived, not all students passed—out of 25 students, 3 failed my subject. Does this mean they did not learn? They did learn, as these 3 students managed to narrate the topics they understood a week before the exams.

A question paper consists of a limited number of questions, which means not all topics can be included. Often, teachers ask questions based on their preferences. If a student fails to provide the expected answer, they are penalized, which does not necessarily reflect their learning. Since exams are one tool used to evaluate whether students have grasped the information presented, they can sometimes be used unfairly as a tool for penalizing students. At the end of the day we would be surprised to see how these students apply the information they have learnt at school in their day to day life. 

By Oliver Kasito Jnr