Teaching begets teaching.

In the course of this morning's lesson an interesting point was raised in the form of a quotation. I categorise quotations as the spice of life: a witty little phrase, full of flavour, to clip into your memory and think about when you're doing something related. I've got a number of Quotation Books - most of them by the wonderful Rosemarie Jarski - and I'll do a breakdown of them at a later date. They certainly start the mind whirring.

Today's was on the subject of teaching, which can't be entirely unexpected. Not attributed to anyone, it said: "Ironically, the principle aim of teaching is to make teachers unnecessary." Which I wasn't entirely prepared to hear. Teachers, making themselves obsolete? What? And then that little cog in the back of your mind clicks into place and . . . ahh. And that's the beauty of a good quotation.

The thing about teaching is that in being a kick start, it has to equip with more than just knowledge and direction. You don't only teach a person to sit on a bike and move the handlebars, you have to teach them to read the road so that they can do everything without you there pointing it out. Teaching is about equipping skills, readying students for when you can't hold their hands. Which can be any resonable length of time - often a matter of years, but International House is better than that. One month and they'll have people ready and willing to bump up a fluency bracket. Anyway, after a while comes the time when one can't rely on someone to tell them. They need to learn for themselves, as a continuation of what they have already. In this way, teachers aim to remove themselves from the equation: after a while, a child doesn't need stabilisers; after a while, they don't need waterwings. You ease those away. While over a longer - and I would say grander - period of time, a teacher should function in much the same way. And they do - it's no coincidence that at university you're doing most of the studying yourself.

I'm yet to come to a conclusion as to whether this is limited to language, though. There are many ways to practise a new language once you've got the basics, particularly if the language is English and you live in England. Free newspapers, internet, the works. With maths, however . . . that's not practise on the same level. It's more reaching out. And from there you'll need constant guidance and redirection, because sometimes things can't be learned from a book.

Well, that's that. Maybe I'll do a film review next, so as to make out that this blog has some kind of credulity, or at least an aim that differentiates it somewhat from the very blogs I said I didn't appreciate in the first post. Hm.

Teachers can either hold the door open or slam it in your face.