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ìOh, I see!î

What more wonderful words can there be for a teacher?

Thereís nothing I love more than being able to explain so that students say:

Now, I understand! Thatís a 'wow' moment. With a few simple examples rooted in their life experience, a few lines of a diagram, itís possible to make the abstract concrete. So that they can understand how to use the present perfect tense or how to distinguish between the past simple and the past perfect tenses. Putting flesh on the abstract. Making the high low.

What I love about the writing of CS Lewis is his ability to communicate the most abstract theological points in a clear, concrete way so that they can be understood, marvelled at, appreciated. For all his intellect, education, don-ships and fellowships at the great universities of England, he didnít consider it beneath his dignity to employ simple, normal, everyday word pictures to express and communicate. In fact, one has the distinct feeling that he relished cutting to size pomposity and pretension.

Thereís a great deal of pretension in higher education here in Congo:

The challenge is to encourage the students to converse in simple, natural English and not include all the grandiose vocabulary that they discover in obscure texts.

The challenge is to instil in the students the attitude that more knowledge should lead to humility, because you discover that thereís so much more to learn and you will never arrive at knowing.

The challenge is to respond diplomatically in situations where teachers who, with an exaggerated sense of their own importance, propagate wrong knowledge of English and then lose face when their errors are exposed by the students.

I used to think I knew I knew

But now I must confess;

The more I know I know I know,

I know I know the less.

Are there any of you who are wise and understanding? You are to prove it by your good life, by your good deeds performed with humility and wisdom.  Jam 3:13 

Blessings,