What Teachers Can Learn From Famous People

Terry Pratchett is an internationally bestselling novelist and a multi-millionaire. At school, he was, according to his own words, "a non-decrypt student", a "dreamer", and a "goat". His principal open doubted Terry would achieve anything in life. At 17, Terry left school with 5 O-levels, and got a job at a local newspaper. at 35, he had his first Discworld novel published. 25 years later, he was knighted.

Thomas Edison, famous scientist and inventor (of, among many things, the electric light bulb), was thrown out of school at age 12 because he couldn't learn maths and was unable to focus. His teacher said, "he was too stupid to learn anything."

Tom Cruise, a world-famous movie producer, director, and actor, describes himself as a “functional illiterate” due to dyslexia. He wasn't a good student. Today, his estimated wealth is 380 million dollars.

Director of Jaws, Steven Spielberg, dropped out of high school because he was put in a "special education" class.

Benjamin Franklin, whose image graces the $100 bill, left school at age ten.

Bill Gates, a co-founder of Microsoft and the richest person in the world for a number of years, left Harvard in his junior year.

All these people succeeded despite, rather than because of, their teachers. And yet, a good teacher can ignite the imagination and instill a love of learning. Are you a good teacher? Find out.

Do you teach the way you learn?

Do you teach the way you learn?

 

For decades, it’s been an accepted premise that we teach the way we learn. For example, if your learning style is highly analytic, you will teach in a highly analytic way, in other words, point by point and going into a lot of detail.

 

However, Creative Learning and Prashnig Style Solutions have embarked recently on a journey to explore the premise. We’re helping researchers to compare learning and teaching styles worldwide in an attempt to solve the global education crunch.

 

While the answers will still take many months to determine, here is a fun game for you. Have a look at the Learning Style Pyramid and try to guess which elements:

• will match the statement “you teach the way you learn”
• will be in direct contradiction to that statement (for example, if as a teacher, you rebel against authority, will you let your students rebel against you?)
• will match the teaching style’s logical “reciprocal” or correlated learning element (for example, if you learn by talking and therefore you teach by talking, your best possible match will be students who learn by listening).

 

Parents and teachers, what is your own Learning Style? 

Learning Style + Teaching Style = Perfect Match

A learning style is the child’s preferred way of learning new things.
A teaching style is the teacher’s preferred way of imparting knowledge.

Have you ever wondered why it’s so important that the teacher’s teaching style should match the student’s learning style?

Just consider this recent (actual) news clip from Reuters:
“It's official: Your toddler is smarter than a chimp, at least at some things! In one social learning test, a researcher showed the children and apes how to pop open a plastic tube to get food or a toy contained inside. The children observed and imitated the solution. Chimpanzees and orangutans, however, tried to smash open the tube or yank out the contents with their teeth.”

Now compare the story above to the following (fictional) news clip that could have made headlines somewhere in a science-fiction universe:
“It's official: A chimp toddler is smarter than a human, at least at some things! In one social learning test, a researcher showed the subjects how to smash open a plastic tube containing food or a toy, or to yank out the tube’s contents with their teeth. The chimpanzee toddlers observed and imitated the solutions. The human subjects, however, tried to pop open the tube with their fingers.”

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

To read an article about learning styles, please click here.
To find out more about teaching styles, please have a look here.

A quick disclaimer: the above illustration is not meant to be derogatory to humans, apes, teachers or students in any way whatsoever.