Dave Barren says:
>
> Ray writes:
>
> >>... I'm reminded of one of the elder voice teachers in the New York Singing
> >>Teacher's Association who was asked ... why people couldn't sing and didn't
> >>want to. She said: "Because no one knows how to teach them. If you have
> >>teachers who know their business then the students will learn and change
> >>will happen. Teach them to sing!"
>
> This sounds like it's the teacher's job to motivate the student. We've
> been around that bush before. It may take special talent to discover how
> to help a student tap into what drives her, but the motivation itself lies
> within the student.
Rest of message cut.
What is teaching? From my perspective, it is interesting the student in
the subject matter. If that be motivation, then Ray's got a really valid
point. In the words of Marvin Minsky, "words should be our servants, not
our masters".
What I mean by this, dear readers, is that we should not even consider the
meaning of words like "nature" or "nurture". The root cause of such
things lies in some godhead. It is not ours to understand, but to teach
is to be a godhead, to be someone special (in my small town Eastern
European neighborhood, grade school, high school teachers, choir
directors, Sunday school teachers were ALWAYS called Professor). Teaching
is a derivative of knowledge and behavior. Learning comes in many forms.
A good teacher (not someone with a lot of knowledge) performs and
inspires. This creates motivation.
Of course, if mom just shot dad in the chest over the last slug in a
bottle of wine, junior may not be capable of motivation. If that's what
you mean, Dave, then I agree, but there are shades of gray to be dealt
with here.
--jzavacki@wolff.com John Zavacki The Wolff Group 800-282-1218 http://www.wolff.com/
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>