Saturday, January 22, 2011

A Lesson in Teaching, if it's Not Your Profession:

I have to say that over the course of my life I have learned many things, and one of them relates to the effectiveness teachers have on their students. I'm not one to talk of course because I'm not a teacher, but I do want to get something off my chest.

For me, it seems that as soon as you fully grasp any new concept, you become much better at teaching it to someone else than any teacher who has known the concept for a long time. Of course the teacher may know some tricks and other ways of doing solving problems that you may not, but here's the kicker: because you have just learned it, you aren't taking for granted things that you have known for a long time. By this, I mean that you don't know aspects of something so well that you forget to explain them. And if a student asks a question, because you are so used to the concept already, you will likely not be expecting their question to be something so simple and so you might not respond with a clear answer.

Let me explain with an example:

In a class a few months ago, we were learning about how orchestras can be created with a single player when recording multiple times to a track for film music. The professor explained that one musician who can play many instruments would sit and record the same song with the differen instruments on separate tracks, over and over again so that they would all line up and play together, and it would sound like a full symphony orchestra. "Well," a student said, "how are they able to keep the playing synced to the other tracks?" The professor went on to explain all these details about click tracks, tempo, beats per minute, and how they can use advanced technology to slide parts over that might be out of sync. The girl said okay, but I could tell she still didn't have an answer she was looking for. After a little while, someone else asked a similar question. I knew what the students were getting at, and raised my hand. I asked about what type of headphones they use for recording. As soon as I said this, both girls said, "Oh, so they use headphones!" and I knew their question had been answered. Something so simple as that hadn't even been considered by the professor, because the question was so elementary to music recording.

So, I leave this on the table... As teachers and professors, of course you know many advanced things, and the basics are so far behind that you don't even think of them. And of course most students ask questions that don't spark the right answer because you don't expect them to be answering such a simple question.

This is why sometimes I feel that those who have just fully grasped a new concept can be the best teachers, because they don't leave out those most elementary of details, which are sometimes the most crucial.

I am currently working on a book about wedding videography that i hope can really explain every aspect of it, from the most complicated down to the most simple. Since I am still learning each day about this craft, I hope that I will keep in details that might be forgotten by those who have been doing it for decades. Therefore, if you are interested in wedding videography, I implore you to ask me question you have so I remember to answer them in my book.

1 comment:

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