Teaching, Learning, and Humility

I'm reading What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain and Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in America by Mark R. Schwehn. Bain says the best teachers have the humility to assume that when students aren't learning well, the teacher is at least partly to blame. Schwehn says students need the humility to presume that others have the wisdom and authority to teach them. So humility is a virtue required of both teachers and students in order for learning to take place. As a teacher, Jesus modeled humility and urged his disciples to imitate his example.

How the Best Teachers Motivate Students

In What the Best College Teachers Do, Ken Bain says the most effective teachers motivate students to learn by inviting them rather than by commanding them. He says these professors act more like “someone inviting colleagues to dinner” than like “a bailiff summoning someone to court” (p. 37). This means instructors emphasize what the course promises to do for students rather than what students have to do for the course. These teachers encourage students to participate for the sake of enjoying learning, and they do not discourage them from taking risks out of the fear of receiving a bad grade.