UNIVERSITY LECTURERS Vs HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS

There is a vast difference between university lecturers and high school teachers. In the media recently the statement was made that high school teachers are not on  the same level as university lecturers. In the area of study achievement, that is true.

But that can be where the advantages end. University lecturers can run the risk of being totally student-unfriendly. They think they have to make their subject complex. They never explain the big picture.

Their black-board summaries are disorganised scribble. They make their subject without practical application and focus mainly on theory. They stay in the unknown and the complex.

High school teachers are successful when they show an opposite approach. They explain concepts. Their work is based in practical application. They teach ideas and technical words. They proceed from the simple to the complex and known to unknown.

The business college teachers are somewhere in between. University lecturers think they do not have to teach as all the work has to be done by the students.

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Years ago at the tender age of 17 years, I was an evening student at the University of Queensland. On the first day of one subject, we were told by the lecturer that we should see the "big picture" of his subject by about October.

This surprised me. It seemed like being given a jigsaw puzzle ten pieces at a time without the picture on the box and being told to work.

High school teachers would have the opposite approach. They would spend the first day giving the picture on the box and then telling the students to get on with it.

The university lecturers would argue that this was spoon feeding. But surely much deep insight to the subject would come from knowing the big picture from the outset.

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This blogspot has advocated Mastery Learning for schools in Papua New Guinea. This would be opposed by those university lecturers who see high school as only relevant in preparation for university studies.

They would regard sequences of practical Mastery Learning exercises as quite offensive and spoon-feeding. They would want study in high schools to be theoretical and from reference texts.

University lecturers often live on another planet. High schools have more roles than just preparing students for university. 

We used to be told by psychiatrists that people with high intelligence can speak in abstract concepts. Many university lecturers have taken this to heart.

They fail to understand that even higher intelligence is involved in understanding of abstract concepts and explaining in simple terms. Universities in developing countries have to be more practical.