Wednesday, February 24, 2010

A vicious cycle (of education)



I've recently enrolled in (and am seriously considering actually going ahead with) a Graduate Diploma of Education. I had a couple of orientation sessions this week.

The course convenor, lecturers and tutors who made presentations were actually engaging. Never before have I attended a university orientation program that was so informative, well-structured and helpful in thinking through what the program is, how it works and what it is meant to achieve.

I think this is specifically because it's an education course. Those running the course are experts on education and how to teach. We, the students, are there to learn to be educators.

So, in effect, we have educators educating educators on how best to educate.

I have previously studied in Science and Humanities faculties and although there were some good teachers it was obvious that many of them were primarily researchers rather than enthusiastic educators. Some approached teaching with reluctance, some with indifference, probably some even with abhorrence.

It would seem that the people in the Education faculty actually like to teach. And they're good at it.

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