Seven billion teachers

Everyone on Earth is a teacher. We all have the ability to help others to learn. This is exactly what Vygotsky had in mind when he proposed his famous Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory. Children (and adults too) can learn more broadly, deeply and extensively if they have a knowledgeable person by their side, than they can on their own. In our society, we often think of that knowledgeable other person as a professional educator, a tutor, lecturer or classroom teacher. But it need not be. Not everyone is cut out to be a professional educator, but anyone can teach and most of us do exactly that, just about every day. The artistry of a good educator though is to continually engage students in learning, to inspire them to persist in their studies and to transfer their own personal passion to that student's learning. The art of education is to draw out the very best from learners, to encourage them to excel at what interests them, and to instill this within them so they continue to do so for the rest of their time on this planet. The very, very best teachers can do all these things, and usually instinctively.

We learn in a multitude of ways, some within formal settings, others less formally. How did you learn to tie your shoelaces? Most people would remember a friend, or a parent showing them how it was done. Then it was practice, practice, practice, until you could do it without thinking. Your first language was acquired naturally before you ever went to school. You learnt informally, listening to your family members speak and then engaging with them as you built your vocabulary. One of the great, unchanging roles of a parent is to be an informal teacher of their children, and older siblings also take a hand. Children today learn a lot of social rules and mores through informal play, long before they ever see a school playground.

If there is any difference at all between formal and informal learning, it is where that learning is heading. What is the study for? In formal learning contexts, learning is usually aimed toward obtaining some kind of qualification, an accreditation of a skill or knowledge. In informal contexts, it's simply about living. Going to school or college can be a real effort, day in, day out. Formalised learning can be a chore, but it need not be. This is where the skilled teacher can make learning engaging and fun, and motivate students to arrive each day anticipating something special. It takes passion, dedication, drive, tenacity and self-belief to become a professional educator. That's the difference between education and teaching, and it is why, although there are 7 billion teachers in the world, only a select few ever go on to become skilled educators.

Image by Momento Mori


Seven billion teachers by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.