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> On the other hand, teaching is an innate human capability, and a big part of what makes us humans. That depends on what you mean by teaching. Explicit formal
by barry-cotter 4y ago
> On the other hand, teaching is an innate human capability, and a big part of what makes us humans.
That depends on what you mean by teaching. Explicit formal instruction with at least some attention to abstract principles is basically unknown in non-literate societies. People are generally terrible at it without experience. Observational learning is something people are amazingly good at, and language helps a lot but teaching isn’t even a universal in human societies. Watching and learning with occasional, minimal correction is.
Anyone who wants to learn more should read The Anthropology of Childhood by David F. Lance.
- WalterBright 4y agoHomeschoolers seem to do rather well with no such training. Many parents teach their preschoolers the basics of reading before they enter school. Those parents have no special skills. My parents taught me arithmetic as a preschooler. My 8th grade teachers were still trying to teach the kids the multiplication tables. (Personally, I suspected those kids knew the tables, they had just figured out that they could keep the teachers stuck in a loop by pretending to fail all the tests. This way they would not have to learn any more advanced material like fractions AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!! This looping business was made abundantly clear to me later, when other students bragged to me how they snookered the teacher into failing to advance.)