Thoughts on How People Learn Through Good Teachers

A man or woman who truly understands something is able to explain things in the fewest possible words. He or She who truly understands a subject is also able to teach and explain things to others on many different levels thus enabling diverse people to learn. Consider your favourite school teacher and recall the lessons you enjoyed most as a child; why did you enjoy it? Is it because you understood the subject due to your teacher; or did you have a natural gift for certain subjects? It may well have been a combination of enjoyment coupled with tutoring skills that caressed your natural gift? But not everybody is a school teacher, but every parent is a teacher to a child.

Bad teachers are also remembered often for all the wrong and funny reasons, for even awful teachers can teach something meaningful if you care to listen long enough. My structural mechanics teacher was probably the brightest man on earth as I recall him expertly explaining astronavigation; but I learnt little from him because I couldn’t understand him. He may well have been speaking Klingon for all I cared but I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t really listening.

That is until one-day he said something that interests me, he said: “The discovery of astronavigation allowed Britain to conquer the world”. Now all of a sudden astronavigation became interesting to me. I still couldn’t tell you how it works because its beyond me; but I know what it is and why it is important. Astronavigation taught the British Empire navigation via the stars without the aid of a compass. The British Empire’s mastery of astronavigation allowed them to navigate the seas accurately voyaging around the world and conquering new land. Today we call it Satellite Navigation. History interests me therefore I listened.

Not every student can or will proficiently understand every subject matter, and those students that struggle in the classroom can later in life learn through their own experiences and mental maturity; whereas others may never really learn or care how E=mc2.

In later life you pursue the subjects and hobbies you enjoy. You develop interests and hobbies often without really knowing ‘why’ and that is ok. But do actively pursue a worthwhile and enjoyable hobby and interest because it is healthy and gives purpose and avoids a mundane existence. A mundane existence eventually catches up and leads to sorrow, unhappiness and discontentment.