Since I work in the education field, I read the selection from Quintilian with great interest. While some of his ideas don't seem quite as applicable in the 21st century American school system (such as having the best teachers at the youngest ages...I don't know how professors would feel about teaching, say, kindergarten), I think I need to keep Quintilian in mind more as I respond to students' work. Many teachers give students gads of positive comments, while many others lay on the criticism (constructive or otherwise) without drawing attention to the good points of students' work. In our world now filled with scoring guides, some projects are evaluated without a single comment from the instructor. I have been guilty of all of these at times in my career thus far. So, yes, the happy medium. As teachers we need to offer advice on needed improvements, while encouraging students with positive comments. I also like Quintilian's "This is okay for this level" comment to show that the performances will not be acceptable in the future.
The thing with Quintilian's thoughts on the education system is that even though as I was reading I kept thinking, "Yeah, that makes sense..." and "Whoa, that really hasn't changed that much in a couple millenia...", there is the part of me that sees that, like the above example, this is obvious stuff every teacher should intuitively know. And maybe they do. But even for those of us who think we at least occasionally get something right in the classroom, it's good to read a respected ancient reaffirming what I think I know.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Genesis, I too thought that much of what Quintilian had to say clearly connects to education today. About having the best teachers at the youngest ages--I guess it depends on what is meant by best. Certainly kindergarteners don't need the best teachers in the sense that they have PhDs or have published multiple books. But maybe we can agree with Quintilian if we play with the meaning of "best". In other words, kindergarteners do need the best teachers--the teachers who are the best at teaching that level. And certainly different skills are required at various levels of education. So even though his idea of the best teachers teaching young ages may not be realistic in the way he means it, but he is onto something in that he values excellence at all levels of education.
Post a Comment