As a golfer, I admired advice attributed to Tom Kite, outstanding PGA player and course architect. “Tee the ball as high as you can. Swing as hard as you can. Hit the ball as far as you can. We’ll fix the problems along the way.”
As a teacher, I admired a similar advice telling teachers to listen first and often and talk afterward and less. To your students, “Tell me what you know. Tell me what you think. Tell me what you would like to know. We’ll clarify and correct and then expand and extend along the way.”
Each of these seems to treat its pupils naturally. When we prematurely overlay the heavy hand of pre-direction, initiate compensating interventions and create the fear of mistakes, the resulting learning most frequently meets our expectations. It needs redirection, remedial interventions and correcting interventions to accommodate the mistakes of our foreshadowing.
Learning is a natural phenomenon. Let it unfold naturally and the learning child will remember you as a very wise teacher.