A Teacher Is Not Your Parent

Adult learners can bring childhood expectations into a teaching relationship without noticing.

Explain it for me.

Make me comfortable.

Tell me what to do.

Protect me from getting it wrong.

A good teacher may sometimes do some of those things.

They are not the teacher's permanent role.

Adult learning requires responsibility to remain with the learner.

The teacher can provide structure, challenge assumptions, demonstrate a skill, offer feedback, and create conditions in which learning is more likely.

They cannot do the learner's seeing, practicing, deciding, or integrating on the learner's behalf.

This is especially important in intense educational settings, where authority can easily acquire parental or therapeutic expectations it should not carry.

Clear boundaries protect both sides.

The teacher is not required to become emotionally cold.

Care and rigor can coexist.

The distinction is between support and substitution.

A teacher can stand for a learner's capacity without taking over the learner's responsibility.

At some point, learning has to become the learner's work.