What's In a Word?

Something interesting to consider is the difference between the words learn and teach. Does teaching imply learning? Not at all. Someone can be passionately teaching about a subject they love but for those listening, it may just be going in one ear and out the other. For any number of reasons. Even if the teaching is "hands-on" there are times you are just going through the motions, nothing is sinking in. When teaching is the focus, knowledge is in pursuit of the student, but unless that student is receptive, no learning happens. So has anything of value really occurred?

Try shifting your focus to the learning. Then you have a student in pursuit of the knowledge, in control, and that student is learning all the time - just not following someone else's idea of what they should learn and when. Which situation results in more learning happening? Which results in more "real" learning - learning that is understood and remembered?

I personally don't "teach" my kids - they "learn". I may facilitate their learning (for example, helping them find an answer to their question), I may contribute my experience to our conversations if I think it will be helpful, I may show them other ways of doing things which they can then take or leave, I may learn alongside them - but I don't "teach". To teach implies an obligation on part of the other participants to learn, and I lay no such requirement on my kids. But I see them learning all the time!

Learn vs. Teach by Sandra Dodd with more thoughts on the meaning of the words teach and learn.