LEARNER ETHICS-4

 LEARNER ETHICS-4     

 [A silent process of shaping-2].

In the previous piece, I had indicated that in a learning exercise, teacher –learner interaction can take proportions of ‘infection’. There are reasons as to why I try to relate the event to one of ‘infection’.

Any infection requires a compatible host ['susceptible" in medical parlance]. Also, some proximity determines the scope for infection. [the host lends self to the infecting potential of the donor] I do not mean to suggest that the donor in a learning interaction is a pathogen.

The analogy is relevant only to the similarities known between a host and a donor; the efficacy of infection requires proximity and compatibility.

In a teacher –learner interaction, the proximity is of a mental nature in that the learner keenly receives the information. The willingness of a learner to receive information is the ‘compatibility factor’ in the process.

However, there are typical characteristics that drive the teacher-learner compatibility in enhancing the ‘proximity’ element.

Is it possible that learners develop proximity with the teacher?

The term ‘proximity’ as used in the context of, teacher-learner interaction is one of mental closeness such that learners readily grasp the idea presented by a teacher. For such ‘proximity’ to come by, the teacher has to devise the right approach that can foist ‘mental nearness’.

What is the strategy behind ‘mental proximity’?

Any day , the teacher has to acquire the image of being purposeful and effective; this would mean that [s]he has to keep tuning self to suit the general mind set of the audience in his/her classroom.

Students always represent a spectrum. Each class is a spectrum by itself. So, the different sets of students in different batches still uniformly accept the efficacy of specific teachers while revealing a different attitude to some other teachers in the same institution. This is the crux that teachers must understand in re-tuning their effort to ‘reach’ the learners.  

Why re-tuning is called for?

Human minds are conditioned by a set of factors like domestic back-ground, schooling, earlier practices in learning. Therefore, every batch of learners is a new setting and experience. Just as one key cannot fit all locks, the same style of speech may not reach all minds. Ultimately, reaching the minds- is ‘teaching’.

It is not merely speaking out what one knows, but to make others know what the item is. By, recasting an idea in different forms, more members get to know the information. These efforts gradually infuse a sense of developing a mental proximity with the teacher. Thus teachers can try to help the learner to recognize the advantage of attentive learning.

 To continue…..