Teaching depends on what other people think

An article in last Sunday's New York Times magazine about teaching how to teach contained this quote:

"Teaching depends on what other people think, not what you think."

The author of that quote was Deborah Ball, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan.

I like teaching. Right now I mostly teach Astronomy. I don't claim any special knowlege of the subject over what an interested amateur can aquire in a few years of reading and observing.

I do, however, feel that I have a sense of what my students are thinking, what their mistakes are, how they make them, and how to lead them back to a proper understanding of a subject. Deborah Ball calls this the ability to step outside of your own head.

For me, it involves trying to have a trick, explanation, demonstration or other technique for correcting "wrong thinking" in a way that illuminates the problem and shows why another approach gives better results.

So preparing to teach Astronomy has required learning at two levels. First were the facts and theories themselves. Then came learning how to teach these concepts in ways that were fun, entertaining, and above all "sticky." Some of these techniques I have gotten from books, some from other Astronomy Club members, and some have been born of necessity during that moment of inspiration in front of a group when nothing you have tried has worked and you really need a new approach.

I find the development of the skills to teach the subject as much fun as I have found learning the subject itself. Actually teaching it - where the skills and knowledge come together in real time to make that "aha" moment for people - is more enjoyable still.

I feel I have always been sensitive - some have said perhaps too sensitive - to what other people think. Is it possible that this is a trait which might contribute to success in teaching?

Busy couple of weeks!

The last few weeks have been filled with wonderful activities and fun events. Members of my astronomy club, the New Hampshire Astronomical Society, joined me for an evening of sidewalk astronomy in Portsmouth. We had a wonderful time, lots of visitors of all ages. Mars, M42, the Pleiades, and first quarter moon all competed for attention. Then I gave a talk at the Rey Center in Waterville Valley, NH. Margaret and H.A. Rey were lifelong residents of Waterville Valley. Among their many accomplishments were the Curious George series of books, and a book called "The Stars - A New Way to See Them" in which they drew new outlines for the same starts in the constellations to form figures which matched their names more closely.

One of the demonstrations in that book included an umbrella to show why the Big Dipper appears in different orientations (sometimes holding water, sometimes on end, sometimes pouring water out onto the ground) at different seasons of the year. Several years ago I made one of these out of a large clear umbrella and I have used it in many classes. It was a real honor to "bring it home" to the Rey Center and use it in a demonstration where the Reys lived and worked.

NHAS sponsored a skywatch for the Alton School in Alton, NH. I spoke there on the life cycle of stars and various "What's Up Tonight" topics, then we all went outside for a few hours of observing. Some clouds marred the sky for the first hour, but then things cleared up and it was glorious for a couple more hours.

Finally, last night a friend and I spent a relaxing few hours in Portsmouth showing people Mars, M42 and eventually Saturn once it rose over a building. I put some stickers on the curb at the right distances for the planets and invited people to walk down Congress St. on the "Portsmouth Planet Walk" to see the relative distances of the planets. One mom responded, "Oh we know all about that. We parked near Jupiter!"