by Calsue Murray

Created on: January 16, 2009

Teaching the World: Should experts impose teaching methods that they consider superior, or should local methods be honored?

It is hoped that the following commentary is both germane and useful. The urge to immediately comment was spontaneous because of the importance of the topic. However, it would have been very helpful if the "experts" referred to in the title had been identified or described in some way.

I shall assume that the "experts" of concern are instructional experts from places outside of the local communities into which they are venturing to impose their "superior" teaching methods.

Operationally, in virtually all circumstances, local methods of teaching should be honored. Local methods of learning and teaching should almost always be given primacy.

Ideally, there should be no major conflicts or discrepancies between local methods of teaching and the methods of teaching advocated by acknowledged "experts." Persons of experience and expertise in facilitating learning are needed at all levels of schooling. They are vitally needed everywhere.

The very best schooling occurs whenever the teaching methods of professional teachers coincide with the ways in which their students have "learned to learn." Wherever that is the case, methods of teaching and patterns of learning, though from different sources, can meld well together and the benefits to students can be expected to be optimum.

It is beneficial if "experts" and all others remember, acknowledge and appreciate that children are first taught by the persons who are closest to them in their own homes. The earliest teaching and learning of children begins at, or prior to, birth. The earliest teachers of every child include parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

These earliest of teachers will have taught children, born into their families, how to, "learn to learn" long before the children become the "students" of "experts," in schools. The teaching methods used by our earliest teachers are almost invariably local, traditional methods of teaching.

More than likely these teaching methods will have been informal, spontaneous and unstructured. They are also likely to have been free from stress, for both "teachers" and learners.

Rarely, if ever are local methods of teaching likely to coincide closely with teaching methods practiced, favored and advocated by "experts." It can be to everyone's benefit if any similarities that exist are recognized as benefits to be appreciated and built upon.

The very

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