Teaching students to teach themselves

As I read the 3 primary perspectives on education, and sub categories within them, I was reminded of something my grandfather said. He is not an educator in the formal sense of the word, but he believes in the importance of education. He often says “the most important thing to teach a student, is how to teach themselves”, and I agree. I definitely find myself most drawn to the constructivist perspective, but I think in addition to helping a student to construct knowledge and understanding for themselves, there is also the broader issue of their continuing education. In the modern world knowledge is regularly expanded, revised, and replaced. For that reason the real challenge facing most students will be to teach themselves as they progress through their lives. Therefore I would argue the primary purpose of a teacher is to use the specific lessons they are teaching the student as examples, to demonstrate good techniques for self education; and teach the student how to find and evaluate potential learning resources and tools.

Hearing, Understanding, Learning

“What is the difference between hearing, understanding, and learning?”
I think this is a very interesting question. When I read this question my personal reaction was “hearing is the senses transmitting data to your brain”, “understanding is deciphering and translating that data into meaning”, and “learning is accepting the meaning as true and worth remembering”. A student can understand what a teacher is trying to say, but not agree with it. For example, my teacher teaches us a technique, how to edit footage for a standard dialogue sequence, and guidelines on when and how to use it. I understand what he is saying, but I don’t agree with his statements.