What goes into being a great teacher? Of course, one size does not fit all. There is more than one way to be a great teacher. This post is the first in a series in which I will reflect on what makes for a great teacher.
Charles Halton notes a trait of people who excel at generating
new ideas: they have a deep knowledge of the subject under consideration, and a
knowledge of as many other unrelated subjects as possible. Angela Roskop
Erisman is
posting on the importance of the craft of writing. These things make for a
great scholar. What goes into being a great teacher?
The high school I attended as a youth was
known as “a school without walls.” To this day I find walls confining: the
school was a good fit for me. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I asked to
learn Hebrew and Greek. My advisor arranged it. My Greek teacher was John
Linton, then a grad student in the Dept. of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the
UW-Madison.
We read the gospel of John by an inductive method. I sort of remember the textbook; it had a light blue cover. I would bicycle to John and Nancy’s apartment in Eagle Heights. Why was John a great teacher?
First of all, I had him to myself whenever I went over to
his place. The undivided attention he gave me, even if it was for no more than
an hour a week, nurtured me intellectually. One-on-one teaching and learning:
there is no substitute for it. Think of the times you had a teacher to
yourself. You are likely to remember them well, and consider the conversations
that took place of great importance. A great teacher will find time to go
one-on-one with his or her students on a periodic basis.
John and Nancy also taught me by modeling
what a happy couple looks like, and responding to my adolescent concerns. I
didn’t happen to have parents in a happy marriage, and I was hardly on speaking
terms with them. With John and Nancy it was different. What psychoanalysts term
“transference” played a part in my learning in their home, and in fact was its
most basic context.
The phenomenon of transference is not something
to sneeze at. A good teacher will look for ways for it to be a positive factor
in the learning experience.
John and Nancy Linton are on the faculty of the Oregon Extension, a
program that serves a dozen different Christian liberal arts colleges in the US. John seems
to suffer from perennial writer’s cramp. He has yet to write the book or two
he has in his bones. I hope that will change.
For a delightful portrayal of John Linton the teacher by Michael Bauman, go here.
The last link in the article is broken: you can find it here:
http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0000867.cfm
Posted by: Andrew | November 25, 2010 at 06:29 PM