Teachers Learning and Learners Teaching

First of all I would just like to say how grateful I am that the further away from historical texts we get, the more I can understand! Hooray! I am beginning to read each sentence only two to three times over before moving onto the next, which in comparison to the six to seven times I was reading a sentence in Aristotle is pretty damn good!

Second of all, what I took from this reading, which I am not even sure is accurate, is interesting parallels among teachers and students and the characteristics both positions hold in order to create the dynamic that the relationship requires. This brought up a lot of interesting ideas for me, I couldn't really just pick one because my mind doesn't work that way so I would like to hop around a bit to get my thoughts on the page however messy they may be.

First I thought about his first chapter which suggests that young boys should begin the learning process of teachings similar to his much earlier. I thought this was so interesting because it made me think about the way that translates into our education now. I remember in my linguistics class last semester, my professor was explaining to our class how the subject material that we would be learning in that class would be completely brand new to us, and pretty difficult. However, it was material that used to be taught to 3rd graders less than a decade ago...this shocked me! Is this a reoccurring trend in academia? Subject matter in certain areas of study become diluted or delayed as time goes on? I couldn't believe that Quintilian suggested the same ideas about schooling and this was thousands of years ago!

Secondly I felt that it was very interesting how Quintilian equated the word grammar with the word literature like they were synonyms. Why would he do that? This is not true according to what I know in the study of English. Perhaps those who would want to comment upon my blog post could enlighten me. Grammar = Literature, interesting...no doubt they are both two very important facets of English and rhetoric, but the same thing? I don't see that at all, but it is very possible that I am interpreting this language wrong.

I was also very interested at how Quintilian felt that he could define what the ideal student was, and how the perfect teacher should be. In a time of such philosophic thinking I found this language to be so straight forward and felt that it explained things so directly. In the chapter where Quintilian describes how a teacher can teach effectively teach the art of public speech and what that teacher to do in order for the students to learn the most that they can, I thought it was so interesting how the "last but not least" example of hot to teach most effectively was to not be too "harsh or reproachful," it seems like at that time in our history, there was war, disease and famine running rampant throughout man societies and Quintilian doesn't want teachers to be too mean, it actually seems a little funny.

Mostly, this section made me think about teaching and learning and the effects each have on each other and all of the intricate ways the two relationship can be woven together. It makes me think about our own professor and how she must feel being a collegiate teacher of rhetoric, and it makes me wonder how if when she reads blog posts like this from students with thoughts from every direction, can she keep learning new things about a concept as old and concrete as rhetoric? We as teachers are always being taught, and we as learners are always questioning our own ideas in order to make sense of others.