Sometimes, a teacher’s charisma and passion for their subject can foster real enthusiasm and loyalty in their students. This can result high levels of student motivation and an excellent working relationship between teacher and students. Sadly, however, it may or may not translate into true, long-lasting learning. Students will have wonderful memories of their experiences in the class, but if you test them a year or two later, you’ll find that they often don’t remember much of the content they theoretically learned.
After a decade of doing school, the shocking truth is that even highly motivated, successful students often haven’t learned how to learn effectively. They are not particularly metacognitive, for instance. They may not know how to make good choices (for instance, to continue practicing a skill they haven’t mastered yet). They may never have had the option of choosing how they will learn. And because they have learned to be risk-averse in the process of getting good grades, they aren’t good at learning from mistakes, which is an essential component of the learning process.
The key to encouraging self-directed learning in your classroom lies in establishing a culture that has it as its central purpose. By all means, retain your enthusiasm and passion for your subject and for the art of teaching, but recognize that your motivation is not sufficient — it must be combined with the appropriate culture to engender students’ motivation to learn. Once that culture is in place, all that remains is to create classroom structures that teach students how to learn well. The structures described in the rest of this book are designed to do just that — to teach students how to become self-directed, responsible, and skillful learners.
Letting go of the unrealistic obligation of providing your students with the motivation to learn is a liberating experience. It is also eminently practical — your students will learn more if they are driven by their own intrinsic drive than by your enthusiasm.
I think the ideal role for a teacher is expressed well in a poem taken from the Tao te Ching. Although this advice is several thousand years old, I believe it is completely relevant to classrooms today .
When the Master governs, the people
are hardly aware that he exists.
Next best is a leader who is loved.
Next, one who is feared.
The worst is one who is despised.
If you don’t trust the people,
you make them untrustworthy.
The Master doesn‘t talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, “Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!”
