Questioning the nature of teaching, this book will make for thought provoking reading for all education professionals.
What is teaching?
Synopsis
In asking what is teaching Hirst offers on two explanations: the more common example, in his mind, of a person who may teach in the fullest sense of that word and yet, in spite of their intention and the appropriateness of the activities involved, their pupils learn absolutely nothing. The second explanation argues that not only does there have to be the intention to bring about learning, but that the pupils also learn what was intended.
Teaching, he argues, cannot be separated from learning: good teaching requires appropriateness and must be combined with a desire to learn. Hirst acknowledges that the term teaching as a whole may involve many more specific activities, and distinguishes between teaching as an intention, and teaching as an actuality.
Schools are centrally concerned with intentional teaching which has implications for learning: in order for a teacher to have truly taught a subject, pupil must achieve an end state where they know something they did not before, or are able to do something they could not do before.