Pain: The Ultimate Teacher

My father, a former drill instructor in the USMC, once told me that he’d stomp on a recruit’s foot to teach him right from left — “your right foot is the one that hurts.” Last night in an aikido class I accidentally got hit in the throat. Today I can talk, but it hurts. I can’t project my voice like I usually do. So in class this morning I decided not to talk at all.

Students had already generated a list questions on the course’s website from reflecting in writing on previous class discussions, and I wanted the next exam to be an exercise in learning in addition to the usual one of evaluation. At the beginning of class, I displayed the following instructions on the big screen:

  1. Form groups of 4.
  2. Choose the question from the list that your group thinks is most interesting.
  3. Revise it if needed so that it is concise and can be applied to the readings.
  4. Prepare an explanation for why the question should be included on the next exam.
  5. Each group will briefly present its question and explanation.
  6. The class will vote on whether each question should be on the next exam.

I expected discussion to break out between groups on the relative merits of each group’s question, but this didn’t happen — perhaps because students felt that voting gave them sufficient influence over the outcome. I was pleased though that a couple of the questions that I thought were most perceptive received high numbers of votes. This means part of the work in creating the next exam is already done.

You will actively learn . . .

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