Saturday, December 17, 2011

learning to learn

Ta-Wan


After India, I arrived in Bangkok penniless and with the thought that I'd like to try teaching in a foreign country. I found a room for a few dollars a week and ate as little as cheaply as I could. After a week of looking, I suddenly needed to walk miles in the heat to find a cheap shirt, a pair of trousers and a tie as I was now a teacher with a job. Completely unqualified, I stood in front of classes of children from wealthy Thai families and spoke about what I knew at the time, Web design and animation.

At lunch that day, I met other foreigners with various backgrounds doing the same in other subjects from English to science. We taught in English as we could not speak Thai and the initiative the school had was to immerse kids in English to give them the edge in life. So, unqualified as we were, we were doing just what was needed.

One teacher who became a great friend was Indian and his ability with English had gotten him this job. A big difference was that for the western foreigners the wage was a bit of a joke and just something to get by in a great place away from our own countries, but for him it was a princely sum. He could send money home to support his family and saw the job as something to hold onto for life.

What made him more unique was that, while wise in his way, he was not really knowledgeable in anything and his English was not even so good. His teaching style then was unique.

He taught computers, he stood in classes of kids and taught them Microsoft Word, Excel, Web design, and even some basic computer coding languages. He had no knowledge of how to do any of this though. His method? He'd stand behind the class and ask them how to do it. "Ok, who can show me how to open Microsoft Word?" "That's great! Ok, so how are we going to begin a story?" And in later classes "who's going to show me how to add images to their Web page?"

This method, which I always thought was genius as well as a great lesson in Taoist methodology, kept him in a job he felt lucky to have and really worked as an education method.

It now gives me great pleasure to see this research by a very well educated and fun Indian professor. Please watch and be inspired;



You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.

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