Finnish brochure (doc)

Danish brochure (doc)

Teaching ‘Credo’

Education always ends up being a matter of values and beliefs. Here Kurt Andersen sums up his beliefs and values about teaching and learning.

I am very exited about experiential learning and believe I practise experiential teaching whenever I teach. I am convinced that cognitive learning, which is what is still practised in most educational institutions in the world, is highly inefficient, if the outcome of the teaching is to have learners with active knowledge (i.e. knowledge that can be applied, as opposed to passive knowledge, understood as knowledge that may be ‘there’, but is not readily available for practical, creative application).

Instead of teaching cognitively, teachers need to support the learners in going through a social process of discovery, where the learners through interaction actively experience the application and the implications of the learnings, and/or a through process of active reflection on the topics (as opposed to passive ‘reception’ of information).

Teaching should furthermore be akin to modelling, where intellectual skills, behaviours, beliefs and values are transferred from teacher to learner in a variety of ways, which help ensure that more than conscious, verbal information is transferred. There is so much to learn (and to teach) in this world, and I believe most of it has not been put into words (perhaps it cannot, and even if it could, it would not ensure learning). I am here referring to things such as “green fingers”, where usually the person, who has “green fingers”, is not capable of explaining what his/her skills consist of, but they are there and I believe they can be transferred through a (partly unconscious) modelling process.

This way of teaching puts a lot of requirements on the teacher:

•  He/she needs to be a model for the learners with regards to the topic that is taught on all the levels mentioned above: intellectual skills, behaviours, beliefs and values.

•  I believe, furthermore, that to be worthy of being modelled a teacher needs to be a happy, balanced human being – otherwise modelling is unlikely to happen.

•  The teacher should also believe that it is possible for his/her learners to learn what he/she is teaching – and the focus should be entirely on this learning.

•  The teacher should, furthermore, be able to elicit the resources, knowledge and experience that the students bring to the classroom. Learners may well know things that the teacher does not.

•  Finally, the teacher should be respectful of his/her learners and respect that his/her own views and perspectives can only be offered to the learners, they cannot or should not be imposed. Free choice is, in my opinion, essential for ethical and sound teaching. Anything else would be highly undemocratic.

The ultimate purpose of education is, in my opinion, to increase well-being and happiness on this planet (not just for human beings, by the way) and I believe the following values are essential for achieving this: honesty, integrity, curiosity, open-mindedness, generosity and fun; above all, teaching and learning should be fun, otherwise I can see little reason for engaging in it.

Kurt Andersen 2003

[ Home ] [ Up ] Email to Human Communication Centre

Copyright © 2002 Human Communications Centre
Last modified: 06/03/07