Do we teach our limitations?

As teachers of young children, almost everything we say or do has the effect of stimulating the student to consider a new idea, or to try to do something new. It is easy to see their excitement as the child finds excitement with his/her new knowledge, or success in the new endeaver. But, how do we affect the older students, those who might be far more advanced than us in certain areas, or might be with a little encouragement. We can pull them forward using our greater knowledge, hold them back by expressing our indifference to topics of interest, or push them forward by encouraging them to go beyond our knowledge limits.

Lets take the Internet for example. Imagine a situation where a teen-age student who owns a computer is considering learning about the Internet as a source of knowledge. As a teacher who never used a computer, one might be really intimidated by computers and have the opinion that the Internet is of little value. In fact, for the teacher, that would be true. But for the student, it might be a great experience to learn about the Internet. Like it or not, our society is becoming dependent on computer technology rapidly. The professional success of our students will likely be dependent on their mastery of computer skills that we might consider a bother.

With that difference in perspective and understanding of the future in mind, wouldn't it be beneficial for the student to arrange a visit to the computer center for a demonstration of the technology of interest? Using a resource such as a person who shares the student's interest and has the prerequisite skills (that we don't have) to demonstrate the technology effectively is very consistent with our professional obligations. It certainly would not be a reason to consider the teacher's skills deficient. After all, the teacher would be maximizing the completeness of the child's education by the best use of resources.

Our duty to our students is to help guide them in spreading their wings much further than we had to in reaching our professional goals. Perhaps our role should be to facilitate, and watch, the process to ensure their success and safety, rather than limiting their scope to our level of comfort. I think I would be inclined to ask a student to research a topic in which he/she is interested so that I might understand the attraction of the topic, and the technology involved.

I had absolutely no interest in the Internet until a friend handed me a number of print-outs from his search on my behalf. I couldn't do without it now. All it took was "a pull" to get me started. Until I become an expert, I will just have to "push" those who want to move on ahead. It will be fun to watch.

I hope that you have found my idea interesting. I am always looking for additional methods, information and resources that are useful in education, so if you know of any that I don't have links to, let me know about them. If you have a helpful tip that you would like to share, but don't have a web site, send it to me, and if I publish it, I'll include your e-mail address with it so you can get feedback. Have a great day!

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