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Powerful stuff!!
I used to teach in further education. Most of the lessons passed by "ok" with students learning what they needed to etc. etc. However 2 particular groups of students really stick in my mind - with these two, I feel I really mastered the "art" of teaching - and I think the folk quoted above would have been pretty pleased with my efforts, too!
First, a group of young girls, drop-outs or expulsees from school, all aged 15-16 (so GCSE year, 5th formers, year 11s). They hated school, hated education, hated teachers. I took a group of such girls each year, but the last group really stuck in my mind. I always had a lesson prepared, but rarely stuck to the lesson plan - this was a luxury I could afford in these classes, as the only real "aim" was to get them to attend, learn "something vaguely related to Care", and perhaps want to attend college full time the following year. This particular group came in loud-mouthed and swearing, they didn't really want to be there, but the had no choice - well, not the first week, anyway!! I asked them, as I always did with such groups, what THEY expected to learn from the lessons. They were dumb-struck ... what sort of teacher was this? Asking THEM what they wanted / expected to learn?!! 6 weeks into a 10-week course, I stopped part-way through a lesson, and joked "what must you all tell your supervisors about these sessions? I bet you haven't learned anything at all!" I was serious, although I said it in a light-hearted way - we flitted from one topic to another as the questions led us, and no-one took notes! I got a resounding reply "Oh we've learned LOADS", and they proceeded to rattle off dozens of things they knew now that they didn't know at the start of the course.
I felt SO happy. Sure, it massaged my ego a little, but it was more than that, much more - I'd taken a group of 12 no-hopers, who had rarely attended school, and had more court-convictions between them (for violent offences, including throwing a teacher through a 2nd floor plate-glass window ... and we were on the 3rd floor!!) than I had qualification, and succeeded in motivating them to learn. They LOVED my sessions, I had to practically push them out of the door at the end of each 3-hour session, and they attended every single week.
The second group was a group of adults. In fact, this was the last lesson I ever taught, thanks to being bullied out of my mind and out of my job by someone who simply took a dislike to me. But boy! what a good lesson it was!!
I taught them IT and Maths. The IT was easy, I was good at that (we're talking "how to use Microsoft Office, really, but some had never touched a PC before in their lives), the Maths - well, let's just say that I didn't excel at Maths at school, thanks to a rather nasty Maths teacher - but my boss wouldn't take no for an answer, so I taught the Maths, too. My opening shot with the Maths was along the lines of "who thinks they're no good at Maths?" - and I would put my hand up, too!! I reassured them that Maths "my way" was Maths "the simple way", because I couldn't do it any other way!
Anyway, this particular lesson was more than half way through the Maths syllabus. I cannot remember exactly what we were covering, but to do the calucations needed, I had to do a long division sum on the board. Part-way through that sum, I heard a howl of protest from the class "WHAT are you DOING?!!" I stopped, turned to the group and said in a questioning tone "long division ...". It turned out that more than half the class "couldn't do" long division ... so we stopped the lesson to learn long division, then finished the planned lesson as well.
By the end of that lesson, every one of the students felt confident in long division for the first time ever - and 3 of them told me it had "given them confidence to help their children with Maths homework in future". I was walking on air that afternoon ... the "buzz" I got from being able to give these students such a gift was better than any artificially-induced high!
Sorry for the long post - I just wanted to share those experiences.
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