Learning and intellectual growth in students has its fundamentals, as does soccer. Students build from basic comfort to a feeling of being invited, then to a knowledge that they are inspired, as well as an increasing confidence in their own voice as it is elicited in various ways. Subtly they sense the growing realization that they are part of a larger whole???of the human story, of life.
I believe in a balance of progressive and traditional teaching. Tutoring one-on-one is the best of teaching. I like to present any given material in two ways, such as aurally and visually, so that various learners can access the depth of the content. An example might be to have them select quotations from Civil Disobedience, put them in their own words, write whether they agree with them or not and create a visual of a selected passage from Walden. Or in addition to an aural discussion of a Scene in Hamlet I will write a web on the board to map both concepts and characters.
I believe in growth through learning. I believe it is life in a full sense.