Learning By Doing

I'm grateful for classroom teachers I've had in my life, they showed me respect, patience and shared the love of their content with me. The teacher that had the most profound impact was not in a classroom though. I learned to sail in 1987 at the Croton Sailing School. This experience affected me profoundly for two reasons. First, I learned a skill that I am still passionate about to this day, and second the philosophy of teaching that was used there I translate into my educational ideology.

 

Learning By Doing

Sailing is a life long pursuit. You can truly never learn everything there is about it. The weather and water changes often. In my early experiences learning this skill, we were learning while we were sailing a boat ourselves. We had direct contact with the tiller (which steers the boat) and the sails.



This metaphor of students in a classroom being on a sailboat makes sense to me especially when we have the opportunity to hand the tiller over to them and let them take control of their learning. Thanks again to SJ at the sailing school. You taught me much more than just how to sail.