Disqus - Friends of teacherdevelopment

Re: Research, Theory, Practice

diamondfingerz — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:58:59 -0000

In fact, Van Lier sort of admits to this being a trick question - although he doesn't use quite the same words! He points out that most people he asks notice the artificiality of the question...but they always choose "practice" anyway! He suggests that a more unified theory is possible, with action research as a starting point.

I'd like to read your review - when will it be published? - I've also just read a review by Julian Edge (TESOL Quarterly 42, 4 Dec 2008) in which he suggests a similar thing to Van Lier - a distinction between "theory" and "theorizing", with the latter, as carried out by the teacher, leading to greater "developmental possibilities".

Edge himself looks at this question of whether something has "worked" - and describes this as a "perniciously limiting question" which we'd do better to replace with "what did I learn from this?"

I guess that it can be hard to see things that way when you're teaching several classes a day - for me at least, there's always this desire to know whether something worked or not for the students there and then, in that particular class. But maybe a first step in development is getting away from that point of view and seeing things in a more long term view - after all, language learning is a long term activity, and so is teacher development.

Re: The Willises Visit

diamondfingerz — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:06:19 -0000

Hi Darren,

I'm just about to take a module on my MA with Norbert Schmitt - really looking forward to it.

Good to hear that we've got a bit more interest - have the new recruits signed up for disqus? I think that's the important thing at the minute - it's the thing that makes the chat possible. If anyone interested happens to be reading this - sign up! Let's have your comments, and learn from your experience!

Re: ICELT objectives

diamondfingerz — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:02:12 -0000

Hi Tina,

I guess a key point is where these objectives come from. Your decision has to be better than the textbook, since you know the students; but maybe best of all would be the students setting their own objectives, or asking you to help them focus on certain ideas. I don't know anything about the ICELT course - who makes decisions about what gets taught?

Having said all of the above, I still found my DELTA invaluable, even though we were encouraged to basically ignore the importance of selecting objectives. Our objectives were not always that realistic, but we were encouraged to be modest in what we felt we could achieve - i.e. "notice features of question tags", rather than going from noticing to producing in a 60 minute lesson... which is what might have been expected on my CELTA. On the DELTA, I started to feel that the clarity of having objectives can lead to some really good learning opportunities - i.e. it wasn't the objectives themselves which led to the learning, but the other opportunities that the objectives afforded.

To give an example: in one class I was supposed to be teaching ten new lexical items. Can't remember exactly what the items were, but I used cognitive methods to teach them - I think two different techniques which involved the students sorted and then ranking the words, according to criteria they selected themselves. I haven't a clue whether the students really did learn the words - my guess would be that they remembered a couple that they were ready to learn, and have a vague recollection of most of the others; but the interaction it created between the students, and between the students and the words themselves (i.e. via dictionaries) was wonderful.

"Collect[ing] evidence that the students used the language item I had chosen and consider it successful"... that doesn't really fit into the "have modest expectations" criteria, though!

Re: teaching and learning vocabulary

diamondfingerz — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:17:26 -0000

Despite all the fuss, a while ago, about the lexical approach, I think vocabulary learning is still a really neglected area, and perhaps the problem is that it really is best suited to the very personalized approach you mentioned - personalized selection of words, personalized testing... I wonder if this is something that could form a part of a portfolio based approach to testing (something that Jane Willis suggested during her recent visit). Students could simply provide, as part of their portfolios, evidence that they have learnt new words, including collocations etc., as you mention - and also point those words out in written work they've completed, to show that they're using the words.

I'm facing a tricky decision at the moment - I have to choose the next module for my MA over the next few days, and one of the options is vocabulary teaching, with Norbert Schmitt... I'm sure that would provide a few more opinions and suggestions!

Re: teacher development - Study Finds Jack Shit Pardon the language… but...

diamondfingerz — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:00:57 -0000

Hi Darren,

It's interesting just how much of an issue this seems to be in Applied Linguistics and ELT. There is so much skepticism - cynicism, even - about the research done in our field.

I don't see it as particularly hypocritical that researchers often seem to be out to boost their CV... that's just the nature of the beast. Universities are businesses, and businesses require marketable commodities, which means pressure on academics to develop strong reputations. Reputations are based on publications, which are based on research, so... Of course, there are a whole lot of studies out there which are being, or have been, conducted into the blatantly obvious... but as you said, so much research is wonderful and necessary.

My opinion on the real problem is just the same as yours - researchers need to get the message across more effectively. I get the feeling that once teachers get a certain distance down the road of research and academia, they begin to associate themselves more with that world, and turn their backs somewhat on the realities of ELT(perhaps universities oblige them in some ways there). Teachers, meanwhile, have such a big job dealing with those realities that the academic world seems like another universe.

At present, we've got academics like Scott Thornbury, who seem to manage to earn the respect of both academia AND those on the front line... but I don't think that isolated individuals with the charisma to shuttle between the two worlds is enough. Somehow, a common ground needs to emerge, where everyone's concerns can be addressed. Seems a long way off, though.

Peter

Re: teacher development - Study Finds Jack Shit Pardon the language… but...

diamondfingerz — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:55:13 -0000

Scantily-clad secretaries? John Lydon selling butter? Crikey! Seems we're going the way of everyone else - we start out with our high minded ideas about "development", and soon enough we're down to sex and punk rock ; )

My DELTA tutor, Neil Forrest, was single minded in his determination to improve our profession. He knows exactly how to do it - when new students come into his classroom, he tells them "I'm going to make you perfect". He then proceeds to rip them to shreds and rebuild them in his own image. One day I told him "I've heard about so many DELTA courses which seem to be just reskilling the CELTA stuff - PPP, model, chant, drill". "That just shows the state of our profession", he said. But people like Neil can only do so much...

What do we do about this?

Recently, Scott Thornbury wrote (why can't I make a link here?) that GOOD teachers (his words!) - i.e. those who are willing and able to make the extra effort to develop, don't need to be worried about. What is crucial for the profession is that the OTHER teachers are reached - those who are disillusioned and think research is useless, but who wouldn't have a clue where to begin, even if they had the inclination, to turn their classrooms into centers of exploratory practice.

There are areas of academic study on which most researchers can agree - e.g. there is no one-to-one link between grammar teaching and grammar acquisition. Yet this idea still dominates pedagogy around the world.

Why? There must be a reason for it - is it to do with teacher insecurity ("If we didn't teach grammar, what would we teach?")? Or is it because of the tentative nature of so many academic recommendations?

I guess this tension between global and local solutions crops up all over the place, and of course there's no easy solution. But there MUST be a better middle ground than what we have now, surely?

Re: Error Correction

diamondfingerz — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:25:05 -0000

Hi Sherlock,

Repairing which communication? The one going on in the classroom, or the one in the office a couple of hours later? Or with that pretty English girl they met in the disco? Doesn't the communicative approach focus TOO MUCH on the communication right there in the classroom, at the expense of communication further down the line, beyond the classroom? Unless I misunderstood, one part of what the presenter of the video was suggesting was that the classroom is authentic only as a classroom, not as the real world; and as such, error correction there is acceptable and desirable in ways it is not in "real life".

Peter

Re: Assessing Speaking

diamondfingerz — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:46:27 -0000

I teach my groups of 16 students for a total of 16 periods - twice a week for 8 weeks, 3 hours per class. 48 hours, minus several hours which is taken up by other forms of assessment... not much time left for teaching speaking, especially if you want to focus on teaching the students to assess themselves.

So they way I do speaking assessment is through task based teaching. I give the students a task, which they solve in groups using their communicative know-how, and then present the results to the rest of the class, who then ask questions. I'm busy listening during all stages, so I get a listen to the group phase and the presentation phase. I don't record anything and accept that it's very hard and imprecise to assess the students based on this... but I think it's the best I can do in my circumstances (everything seems to be a compromise in ELT).

I am starting to experiment with getting students to record themselves speaking, and making transcriptions, as a more autonomous approach to error correction. Jane Willis suggests this as a method of assessment: students do a task, record themselves in all stages; listen back; transcribe a one minute minimum section, and then analyze it; and repeat as many times as possible during the course. At the end of the course, the student picks the transcription of the best piece of work they did, and gives it to the teacher to assess.

It's another seriously tricky area, though. In fact, one thing I've learned from this group so far is that there are just so many areas which even the relatively well informed are still not very well informed about!

Re: Researching the classroom atmosphere

diamondfingerz — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:22:42 -0000

Thanks everyone for the replies. Actually, I think I might have done Neil, my DELTA tutor, a bit of a disservice here. His vision of the social role of educators went far deeper than merely trying to get bums on seats. It has its roots in Vygotskyan traditions and the ideas of Steven Pinker - language is an instinct which is innate to human beings, and develops through social interaction. Thus facilitating interaction should be the teacher's primary concern. The quotation from Senoir that Darren gave us seems close to the point - but Neil would argue that if you pull the group together, there's a pretty good chance that they'll find ways to pull *themselves* along.

This is part of what I was aiming at in my study - did those students who dislike their classmates also feel that they learned less? As it turned out, the answer to that question was yes; but as Diarmuid points out, that in itself is not such a surprising result.

One interpretation of the results, suggested by a colleague, was that in the middle east, students don't really consider the social atmosphere to have much to do with the teacher: i.e. the teacher teaches and the atmosphere is just the net result of the people in the room - it's not something which is affected by the teaching style, or the efforts of the students. This rung true with parts of my experience here, particularly with lower levels. These students seem to be quite resistant to introduce any sort of learner training or autonomy into class. Slowly, as they move up the levels, they students come to ask for more and more chat and freedom in class. But at the lower levels there can be a lot of "why do you always just ask us to chat, teacher?"

To answer Tina's question - what are the main reasons students give for dropping out - the two clear winners were "Other Commitments" and "The time of the course is not suitable". As you said, in both cases, I think that motivation could be a part of what they're saying, some of the time (although motivation tends to be pretty high, in general, to learn English in this part of the world). Other reasons students gave were feeling that they weren't learning enough, and disliking the resources we use.

Cleve - I also wonder whether some of the students gave the answers they thought were "right" - or perhaps also were reluctant to criticize the atmosphere in class when the class teacher was collecting up the surveys! I've certainly learnt a few lessons from this project, and there'll be a few things I'll change in the future.

Re: the one who is likely to drop out

diamondfingerz — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:43:50 -0000

Tina,

Your sentence "I was feeling very comfortable blaming him for his bad production until it dawned on me that I haven’t done anything to change it", rings uncomfortably true. I'm certain I've had feelings like this before, and have probably pushed them to the back of my mind rather than dealing with them as thoroughly as they demand to be dealt with.

I hope that it's not too late for your student; but clearly what is needed is the level of attention he needed all along. I suppose that what we need to do is make ourselves more sensitive to these students, and to make a point of not only noticing them when they arrive in our class, but to search them out. All students benefit from a little extra attention, and a little attention from us might often bring a disproportionately large improvement in motivation from the student.

I think in my case, I might have got things wrong in the past by offering the most attention to those students who don't need it, while finding excuses not to give it to those students who, like yours, are most in need of it.

Recently, at my school, a new senior teacher has arrived, and she has insisted that we conduct one-to-one midterm feedback sessions. Thus opportunities to give feedback to these students is institutionalized (as long as they attend on that day!). While I dread those sessions with students I have to tell are in danger of not passing the course (and most probably those students dread them too!), the usual result is that there is an improvement.

I have the feeling that, just as we blame those students so that we don't have to feel responsible for their failure, the students themselves want to blame us, or the school, or their circumstances, rather than taking responsibility for themselves. If we as teachers take the first step - accepting our responsibility and asking the students to share it with us - then we surely have a better chance.

I wonder whether it might be helpful to make a point of doing some sort of regular one-to-one feedback in your context?

Re: Assessing Speaking

diamondfingerz — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 03:18:41 -0000

Darren,

I almost typed a fairly perfunctory response to this a few days ago, along the lines of "that's what makes teaching an art, not a science"... but finally decided it was worth more thought than that.

You're right that there seems to be no solid answer to most of the questions we've thought up; instead, there seems to be a lot of support for statements of the following nature:

"....research findings cannot be used to prescribe, proscribe or even advise teachers what or how to teach. Research findings are best treated as 'provisional' specifications...which teachers can choose to act on or
ignore, in accordance with the exigencies of their own teaching situation.
In cases where they decide to act, the specifications should be treated as hypotheses about teaching and thus subjected to critical scrutiny through teaching accompanied ideally by some form of action research."

This one from Rod Ellis's book "Learning a Second Language Through Interaction" (p248).

It feels like we're consistently coming up against dichotomies (to correct students ourselves or use that time instead to work on developing autonomy; assess speaking individually or in groups; spend time on developing the classroom atmosphere or just concern ourselves with 'teaching'?). Obviously when we look more closely, these tensions are much more complex than merely dichotomous, but on that level they feel quite instructive - is good teaching about finding local, contextually appropriate solutions to these problems we're uncovering? And, by consequence, is our group about uncovering as many of these problem areas as we can and then sharing the localized problems/solutions we come up against?

Re: teacher development - (via bobby stokes) There are two celebrations...

diamondfingerz — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:57:28 -0000

Hi Darren,

I've been mulling this over today. It's one situation for which it's even clearer than usual that culture plays a massive part. Here in the middle east, the men sit on the opposite side of the classroom from the women, and there can (occasionally) be resistance to the idea of the working in mixed gender pairs or groups. So here, it's very much expected that teachers will treat women differently to men. Women here often seem more autonomous than men in the way they learn - they demand less attention and are less likely to offer responses in open class mode. In this climate (as in any other, I suppose), it's important to try to make sure that attention is divided as equally as possible between all the students.

I'd like to think I'm not too affected by the idea of women overachieving at languages. My experience suggests that it's those students who take responsibility for their learning that succeed. In this society, that tends to be men. There's little point (historically, at least) for women to be academic go-getters. Things are changing now, but women have rarely had the opportunity to make the most of academic potential.

As I said, though, things are changing; and it's a different story with my young learners. Classes with12-14 year olds are dominated by the girls. When you get up to the 15-18 age bracket, the boys have often become more vocal; but that doesn't mean they're outshining the girls academically. It's clear that the majority of the top students are girls.

I think this has to do with learning styles. It's not at all unusual to see one or two of the boys keeping up with or outdoing the girls at young learner level; but these are the boys who can sit still for an entire lesson and not lose focus. I'm sure you're right about the nature vs. nurture debate - as in all things, the middle ground is the safest bet - but whatever the reason, boys seem less suited to sitting still and listening to the teacher than girls. Perhaps if the classrooms changed, then the gap in achievement would, too.

Re: teacher development - (via bobby stokes) There are two celebrations...

diamondfingerz — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 02:46:00 -0000

Looking forward to the responses to that question! I'm not sure where it would get me if I asked it here in the Middle East... although there seems to be little doubt that female teachers are generally more popular amongst students here. It's been known for students to ask for refunds on their courses when they've found out that the teacher will be male!

With teenagers, it really does feel to me that quite a lot of boys just seem unsuited to being in the classroom. The restricted space, the lack of physicality, the threat of loss of face: they all seem to add up to create an environment that a lot of teenage boys seem enormously uncomfortable with. Often "difficult" students seem quite clearly to be those who are uncomfortable in a classroom and are looking for other ways to get attention. They seem to be trying to make the classroom less academic. How can we help them in doing that without making life harder for the more academic students? Should we even try?

Re: teacher development - (via bobby stokes) There are two celebrations...

diamondfingerz — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:37:21 -0000

A little twist to this conversation - there is a Japanese woman in one of my classes. She sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all the Arabs; her trendy, ever-so-slightly dangerous dress sense, her unflappable elegance and grace, and yet also the slightest hint of youth and vulnerability... a hush descends upon the classroom anytime she decides to say something.

The impact of having women in the classroom has often been discussed in our staffroom. The female teachers dread all-male classes. Once I was given an all-male class of police officers, at Beginner level. I was absolutely dreading it... but it turned out to be great fun. They were polite, hard working, and had this tiny, subtle streak of fun which made them a joy to teach. I doubt that naughty streak would have survived if even a single woman had been in the class.

Yesterday, the Japanese girl didn't come to class. I have to say, I was disappointed. Probably I'm as guilty as all the other men in the room at having the chance to share in her company. But I was also worried about the effect it would have on the group dynamics. I find that women like her - good-looking, but with the grace and refinement to inspire similar grace and respectfulness from the men - have a remarkable effect on groups. The whole class becomes more polite, more hard-working, more dignified. Students don't talk over the teacher, they don't speak so much Arabic; they try to show their best selves.

I felt I might get something different from that yesterday... but I didn't. In the absence of the Japanese lady, the class were the same joy they always were. We chatted about vocabulary for a whole hour, did a task-based activity with a fairly demanding presentation phase; and everything went with an abundance of attention, respectfulness, and dedication to learning.

So what do you think - was I imagining the effect of the pretty girl?

Re: Autonomy and Vocabulary (part two)

diamondfingerz — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:32:51 -0000

Hi Darren,

Encouraged to hear the new method seems to be working. You're right - you can never know the long term results - but the theory would suggest that forcing those deeper decisions and encouraging deeper connections to be formed between different types of word knowledge ought to have a longer lasting impact.

Interested also to see how you're connecting this word knowledge to frequency data. Do your learners also know how to use corpora to access this sort of information? This is something I've been doing with my students lately, although (like most teachers) I don't really have the time to do this in depth.

I wonder which of the two better-performing groups came out on top - was there any significant difference? It's an interesting contrast - the reading group seems to fit more with the "chaotic/autonomous" model, and the deeper thinking list group seem are being given a more controlled approach. Perhaps individual differences might play a big part in which is most effective?

Re: On Teaching Well

diamondfingerz — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:55:00 -0000

My average student: yes, an adult; not necessarily settled in their goals, although the higher levels tend to have a clearer idea. But we have far more students at beginner and elementary levels than any other level. Not sure why this is but the factors you mention - in particular their expectations about what a classroom should be like - can get in the way. I wouldn't like to say who gets the rougher deal, though. Sometimes I miss the work ethic of my Chinese students (most of them); but then I think about how hard it often was to get a conversation going in class there, and think better of teaching in Oman.

I love this idea of congruence - "the balance between self, other and context", according to Wikipedia (quoting one Virginia Satir). It gets right at the heart of what I was trying to describe. In my case, it was my principles which got in the way of that congruence - it would be interesting to think of other ways we might unthinkingly upset that balance.

Re: PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF

diamondfingerz — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:28:52 -0000

Hi Simon, welcome to the group! I've seen your posts from time to time on the Dogme ELT group - it's good to have you on this group too. look forward to your posts!

Re: Power and ELT

diamondfingerz — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:44:55 -0000

Hi Sara, thanks for the comments. It really was an energizing conversation for me - I left the classroom wondering why that sort of thing doesn't happen more often. The power relations here are quite tense, though, and I suspect that South Asian students would be very reluctant to talk about these things with Omanis (and vice-versa); and there is also a degree (I feel) of reticence among Arabs to open up too much to westerners in a context like the British Council. Omanis (and Arabs in general) are (rightly) very proud of their culture and history, but perhaps they perceive a threat to that from English - take, for example, this article http://www.tesolislamia.org....

To answer your question about the students wanting to be a part of companies which might perpetuate unequal practices; I think they were aware of this contradiction, but simply felt that working for a western company was the lesser of two evils. I'm not sure how much agency they felt to actually stand up against that system. As I said, they were learning English in order to feel comfortable within that system, to feel like equals there. So perhaps the racism inherent in that system has been reproduced as part of the students' own worldview, too. On a certain level, they accept it. They take it for granted that a citizens of a less culturally powerful nation, they will be treated less "equally" - and probably simply consider it safer to accept this. Their conditions, salaries, etc. are still much better than in the previous ("Asian") companies they'd worked for - why rock the boat when they've got so much to lose? Their feelings about the Filipino engineer voicing his worries about the higher salaries of western workers was interesting; they laughed when they told me the story, but they also said they'd tried to ask the Filipino to quiet down when he began asking about it. They didn't mention racial tensions in their previous jobs; however, they made it clear that there were other issues related to power. The one thing I clearly remember them saying they felt bad about was office politics. They felt hard work was not rewarded because there were always people close to the manager who would discourage him/her from promoting hard workers for fear of losing their own power. I think they felt that at least in a Western company, they would be recognized for their efforts - even if they had that extra racial barrier to overcome.

Re: Power and ELT

diamondfingerz — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:57:15 -0000

Diarmuid,

I agree with you - the questions you talk about remained unasked, and I can see how that does nothing to challenge the status quo.

But how are these questions to be asked? It's not our job (is it?) to make our students feel uncomfortable - although you suggest (and I agree) that a place slightly beyond our comfort zone is the place we have the most potential for growth and learning.

Peter

Re: teacher development - http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=20090605010334703...

diamondfingerz — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 02:14:39 -0000

What's going on with the warzone in the background?!

Re: Metaphors for teaching and learning

diamondfingerz — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:45:58 -0000

Hi Darren,

There are lots of interesting ideas here - the one that really got me thinking was about the match between teachers' and students' ideas of the most productive metaphor. Personally, I'd like my students to think of me as the third of your suggestions - a resource which can be drawn on as the students attempt to complete tasks together. But I suspect that my students might not think of me that way!

I think that we as teachers probably feel it's a part of our duty to try to move students in the direction of the sort of metaphors we favour, but i also have the feeling, in Oman at least, that the students also try to push the teacher in directions they feel more comfortable in. So perhaps it's a good idea to do as you do and get these ideas out in to the open where they can be discussed. Do your classes run as far as a discussion about which metaphors work "best"? Or perhaps to discussing what different situations might work best with different approaches?

Re: Metaphors for teaching and learning

diamondfingerz — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:17:42 -0000

This conversation reminds me of a class of young adults I taught last year. I loved being with them, really looked forward to our classes. They were real overachievers, all of them the sort of person that takes pride in being at the top of their class. I taught them in a way I rarely teach - I totally ditched the coursebook and simply shared various ideas about education, development, etc. with them. For example, in the first class, I took Dornyei and Murphey's idea of asking them to report to their peers about one thing they have done in their life that they are most proud of. This gave them a chance to introduce themselves in a positive way, and it also led naturally on to their future - how did they see themselves in 10 years, and what did they expect to have achieved at that time that they would be proud of.

One day I played them a song - Racing in the Street by Springsteen. I chose it because it has lyrics which are, at times, quite open to interpretation; and the more you notice of the details, the more you are likely to find. I wanted them to take this message on into their lives - don't be satisfied with only what's on the surface.

However, they didn't like the song. We had a little discussion about it, but this quickly turned to the sound of the song - slow, old fashoined, boring, they said. Fair enough. But we then talked about this clash of perspectives, and realised that this was what made our time together great. I came to understand that they saw me as something of a rather boring, horribly outdated, yet somehow lovable uncle. Something about them knew that the future belonged to them, not to me, and that they had no great reason to take me too seriously. They were going to leave my class and go off to do amazing things in their lives. Yet I think in reframing our conversation this way, we all realised that there is so much to learn from a shift in perspective. For my part, I learned that what young people need most is the space and the opportunities to grow into themselves; if we as teachers try to make them see things our way, we do them no good at all. If, by contrast, we simply present our way to them as one of many possibly ways of seeing, living, learning; and then let them choose for themselves, then I think we've given them something valuable.

And I think that the students learnt that, when discourse involves a meeting of minds working with mutual respect, it's possible to learn something even from an outdated (28 year) old fossil like myself! At least, I hope that some of them learned something like that.

That's obviously rather a round-about way to answer your questions - I think we should frame our approach in the classroom as a meeting of minds - equal minds - and put our ideas out their for our students to consider. The places that they take those thoughts will probably not be the place we expected them to go - but at least we will have given them some fuel for their development.

Re: Metaphors for teaching and learning

diamondfingerz — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:34:21 -0000

Hi Alex,

Thanks for that short but perceptive comment. I do often feel that it's not possible to do things like I did with that class with groups that have a lower level. But I wonder how much that has to do with my own fear of things going wrong? This is something I've been pondering for other reasons recently, too. We teachers often seem to feel a need to have something to "teach"; we probably think about that far more than we should, meaning that we leave less time to ponder how to simply(?) create opportunities for learning to happen.