Friday, December 23, 2022

Companion Notes for FBMCFE Ask Me Anything Series Video 6

The question from @zannahmariaeva about helping students understand the theory/language as fluently as they understand their first language,for me, opens up the door about education in general and how we are taught and hence how we learn.

Experience and being around other living things gives actual experience where one has to actively engage with life. This is very different from book learning. There is no substitute for getting experience in the "field" of life. I agree there needs to be education about subject matter but being around it (whatever the subject matter is) is the quickest and most complete way of making what we are learning about personal. "On the job" training is invaluable if one does have some basics in the field that they are pursuing.

Think about when you were a kid watching others playing "hide and go seek" or "baseball" or jumping rope etc. You were "studying" it by your observation and soon after trying it out and feeling the ins and outs of the actual participation of the activity. But that would not fly, so to speak, if you wanted to be an airplane pilot. There is a need to understand the plane, rules of navigation and more before even going in the plane. One can easily see from that example,that before one could sit in a band or orchestra certain things would have to be learned like, how to play your instrument, read music etc. So there are levels to learning and building a skill. But the deeper question still remains, "How and why are we teaching?" "What are we transfering when we teach?" This of course is based on what the teacher sees as important and where they think the student should be aiming for as a goal.

For me, an important question is "Are we connecting our subject matter to life and living?" "Does the process of teaching have a naturalness to it?" More soon..