by Morton Mcinvale

Created on: June 30, 2009

Lecturing is presenting or repeating knowledge. Teaching is making that knowledge important, individual, and relative to real life. Teaching turns knowledge to wisdom.

Far easier said than done.

Nor do all students want wisdom. They prefer Sergeant Friday's "just the facts, ma'am" - a quick study guide - in order to prepare for and pass an exam. To even bring such students to the verge of desiring anything more requires making the knowledge personal, converting it into a story.

Teaching is to make a story out of the knowledge that a lecture conveys. Rather than the names, dates, and facts of - for instance - Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin - point out that he is pickled in alcohol in Moscow, that his father was an educator, that he himself was a lawyer, that he loved chess and ice skating, loved opera. . .Or that Hitler once dreamed of being a choir boy in Vienna, that he was actually something of an artist. . .To question then how men with such human qualities could perpetrate some of the inhuman horrors they did in post-Tsarist Russia and Nazi Germany causes each of us - student and teacher alike - to search inside and, perhaps, question. Under certain circumstances, could we do likewise? Perhaps more importantly, why? By humanizing the villain and the hero, we create something - someone - believable and just possibly worth our time and involvement.

In other words, teaching is to take Lenin out of his tomb, Hitler out of Mein Kampf, and breathe life into them!

For too often and too long, lecturing has been a rehashing of dead or static facts rather than a reminiscence, a drama, an unfolding tale. Think. Mark Twain turned the lecture podium into fame and fortune. Hitler? How many ideologues and zealots (and charlatans) have used the podium or lecture to transform a dream, a madness into reality. . .to create. . .or to destroy?

Of course you will say that in the classroom this would take time, too much time, stir controversy, and - often it does. Making a story out of an event or a person or a culture is unforgettable for both the student and the teacher. It is building a bridge between now and then, between textbook and tomorrow, between the listener and the lecturer.

Just when does this kind of "teaching" pass the border line from presenting information to paraphrasing it, from Harvard to Hollywood?

This is a stumbling block for many professionals,

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