My Back Pages: Wanted: A Definition of Teaching
The editorial leading off Educational Leadership's December 1961 issue, on the theme of "What Is Teaching?", shares a number of different perspectives to kick off the exploration of this question.
Read the article: "Needed: A Valid Concept of Teaching" (PDF)
Professor Herman Frick recalls the following definitions:
"We are all teachers, for what we do and say sets an example for the people around us, and thus our every act is an act of teaching." (From "a brilliant young minister")
"He is wrong about teaching—to me, teaching is the specific act of one who knows the answer telling or explaining the answer to those who don’t know it. It is that simple." (From "an equally brilliant young lawyer")
Frick makes the point that teaching means many things to many people, and yet to properly evaluate teaching we must continually reassess what we believe it to be. Finally, he offers his belief that "perhaps teaching is the application of the best-known principles of human behavior in efforts to promote the highest possible achievement of personal adequacy through learning." Of course, he adds that teaching must also continually reevaluate what personal adequacy is.
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