Muddling through the question: "What is your "Teaching Philosophy?""

Somehow, this question: “What is you Teaching Philosophy?” does not feature in the educational institutions – in the recruitment interviews for teachers, in the conversations among colleagues, in one’s introduction with the students….

And it is also not a question, to which one can come up with a ready-made answer.

Actually, it is an unfair question, since one doesn't start with any such "philosophy".... One learns, realizes, develops and internalizes what this whole business of “teaching” is all about, as one grapples through it - the classes, courses, and individual lives and their contexts - and makes sense of it for oneself.

Nevertheless, this is a question worth asking oneself - or so I felt!... The answer(s) kept on changing, evolving, taking shape/ making sense...  At the fag-end of my teaching career (I retired last week), I think I have been able to make some sense of what I have been doing since last 3-4 decades – captured and expressed by people who have tread this path earlier... so here goes

"In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn."
- Phil Collins 

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"A very great musician came and stayed in our house. He made one big mistake… (he was) determined to teach me music, and consequently no learning took place. Nevertheless, I did casually pick up from him a certain amount of stolen knowledge."
- Rabindranath Tagore
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"A good teacher, like a good entertainer first must hold his audience’s attention; then he can teach his lesson."
- John Henrik Clarke
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"Anyone who tries to make a distinction between education and entertainment doesn’t know the first thing about either."
- Marshall McLuhan
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"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre."
- Gail Godwin
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"Good stories surprise us. They make us think and feel. They stick in our minds and help us remember ideas and concepts in a way that a PowerPoint crammed with bar graphs never can."
- Joe Lazauskas and Shane Snow
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"You know, Adolph, I have now reached the age where I know that being remembered for books and theories is not enough. One does not make a difference unless it is a difference in the lives of people. "
- Joseph Schumpeter

 Amen…