Learning to Love Learners
What’s the best way to teach? Is it lecture, group discussion, or active training? Is it social or individual? Is it classical or constructivist?
The best answer to this question, I think, is to ask a different question – how does the student best learn? It’s not about the techniques or the technology. It is not about statistics or surveys. Understanding how learners best learn is about relationship. The best way to reach a student, influence a student, and meet a student’s needs are to focus on that student, get to know that student, and love (agape) that student.
This might mean you have an ongoing relationship with 200 students or more. It might mean you have 3 or 4 students you directly mentor.That relationship helps us to understand what motivates a student as an individual, and when we can motivate a student, we can help them learn. As a colleague of mine said recently, “I remember well my teachers that loved me.” I do too, and those are the teachers from whom I learned the most. It is so much easier to learn from someone I like, and that I perceive cares about me.
We talk in academia about child-centered and learner-centered education, meeting a learner’s specific and individual needs. That is important, and the learner truly needs to be at the center of our model. Add meeting those needs to a relationship of agape love, and that equals the best way to teach. At least, that is, for this learner.