TED Community » Hadiyah Shabazz

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• A comment on Conversation: Why do people like to learn, but dislike being taught?

  Sep 19 2011: Personally i enjoy both! my dislike for either depends on my environment and the teacher (me, book, person)...
  
  There are a lot of things I would like to say about this, but I will just focus on the social assumption connected with teaching that can make being taught a not fun experience.
  
  Socially, those accepted as teachers (book or person) are credited with some type of superior knowledge and value. This assumption of superiority, accepted by both teacher and student, often leads to a devaluing of the student’s ideas/knowledge/experiences by the teacher, through conscious statements and subconscious actions, which slowly tears down a student’s confidence. A negative feeling of inferiority begins to associate itself with the “being taught” experience which leads to quotes like Churchill…
  
  Even the best of teachers with the most positive of intentions have given a look or made a comment that undermined a student’s idea/knowledge…No one likes to be 'talked down to' but our “traditional” hierarchy of qualified knowledge tends to promote that behavior.