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The Teacher's Dilemma: Why 'Nothing Can Be Taught'

A teacher friend likes to spend time with children, and he's very interested in the process of education. Children like him and he likes spending time in the classroom with children. That's probably the reason why lots of people get into teaching in the first place. I am sharing here some ideas that came up in a conversation with him.


The children who are in school, whether mainstream or alternative, are going to spend many years engaging with the content (the subjects) and process of learning. This is what they are occupied with as they progress through school. But what the teacher is occupied with is this process called 'teaching'. This includes things like writing on the blackboard, reading from a book, explaining concepts etc. Throughout his or her career, the teacher's time is spent on these types of activities, that we club together under the heading called 'teaching'.


teacher giving learning input to student

The conversation with my teacher friend led to the insight that although learning is a valid objective for the student, teaching, defined as a transmission of content from teacher to student, is probably not a valid task or work for a teacher. This is because teaching and learning are completely different types of processes - teaching is a logical way of presenting content to the student and learning is a process internal to the learner which has to be understood internally. Sri Aurobindo has the useful principle that encapsulates this - nothing can be taught.


-Arun Elassery


Our YouTube channel has some more details about this conversation. You can find it here:


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