Want Some Soup?

Week 02: Response to “Is the Great American Teacher Dead?”

I offered my uncle some leftover soup this week. When he asked what kind of soup it was, I was stumped! I didn’t actually know how to describe it. It was just “soup” to me that I had thrown together from various ingredients. It didn’t have a particular name or anything. I was surprisingly flustered when trying to “sell” the soup to my uncle. It was a really good soup, but I was unprepared to describe it in an enticing and engaging manner. I wasn’t able to convey the tastiness of it. I wasn’t able to help him be excited about it, and my presentation of the soup left a lot to be desired. It definitely didn’t sound like an exciting meal from my efforts.

That’s how teaching can be. The material I’m trying to teach is a delicious, nutritious soup. Some students will be happy to eat the knowledge soup by virtue of it being soup, but others are picky or reluctant to try it. I know it’s tasty and valuable knowledge, but if I can’t convey that in an engaging manner, my students won’t see it the same way.

I want to cultivate a desire to learn in all of my students, including the reluctant ones. In order to do that, I need to work on my delivery. I need to make sure I’m selling that knowledge hard and showing them the value of it!

Brother Ivers, a professor at BYU-I, gives some fantastic tips in his article in the Journal of Invitational Theory & Practice (2012, Volume 12) titled “Is the Great American Teacher Dead?”. While reading about these techniques is great, we’re fortunate to have fantastic examples we can watch.

Bill Nye is a great example. He’s done a fantastic job of teaching children (and anyone) various scientific concepts in an engaging and entertaining manner. Classrooms still play his videos decades after he finished “Bill Nye the Science Guy”. (Last I checked, they were available on Netflix.) My family and I still reference scenes and songs from various episodes. Yelling “VOLCANOES!” made my middle child giggle for ages!

On the more contemporary side of things, we have the amazing Crash Course and SciShow series on YouTube. The hosts and writers combine deep knowledge with humor on a wide variety of subjects, from world history to chemistry to literature to even business!

Even in writing this, I’m more aware of the need for a good delivery. I absolutely love Bill Nye the Science Guy, Crash Course, and SciShow, but I feel inadequate in describing their value and appeal. I definitely need to work on that skill. How do you think I did, and where can I improve?