Before you can teach anyone anything, you have to inspire them to want to learn it. Once you've done that, the next most important task is to teach them how to learn. Once they have the desire to learn, and the tools with which to do so, you can pretty much sit back and just prod them past their sticking points as they arise.

There's one thing that bothers me in the statements like this. In them, the "student" is considered to be of a "lesser" human, than the teacher. Does anyone really believe, that he/she can "inspire" anyone to learn some specific thing? Clear, that it is possible to inspire someone, but not anyone.

The student is as much a human with desires and expectations as the teacher. He/she might know less on certain subjects, but it does not make him/her incapable of making choices. And he/she must be confronted with making choices. Is there any sense to drag someone by inspiring into learning things that the individual won't be able to apply later because of the lack of abilities? The teachers are not gods who mold humans. They just bring knowledge, and this alone does not make a person capable of using it.

After all, the original statement was, that the future students are already high expecting from the course, but the expectations are based on the wrong assumptions. So it is clearly visible, that they might loose the interest when confronted with the reality. So, the question is, should this be allowed, or not? Should the teacher find ways to keep their interest even when they realize that what they assumed was wrong?

I guess, I just don't view a teacher as an omnipotent being. As result, I didn't expect from the teacher any inspirations, quite opposite, I needed confrontation with the reality, so that I could learn about my abilities.

In reply to Re^6: Bling Bling (or: Teaching Perl to Teenagers) by andal
in thread Bling Bling (or: Teaching Perl to Teenagers) by Sprad

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