Speak About Teaching - GINGER MEEK ALLEN metalsmith

Reading The Key Essay 16 of 17

Speak To Us About Teaching

MIXED MEDIA ON CANVAS, 12 X 25
ACRYLIC, INK, GESSO, PAPER, VINTAGE PHOTOGRAPHS, PAGES FROM THE PROPHET BY KHALIL GIBRAN 1923, PAGE FROM THE STORY OF POWER 1956, SKELETON KEY

Reading The Key would be incomplete without exploring the concept of teaching. Those who teach are valuable beyond measure to a society. And yet, a teacher’s most important job is not to transfer information to a learner, but to guide a person to become a learner.

“Speak To Us About Teaching” features the writings of Khalil Gibran in The Prophet. The treasured book is a series of lessons from a teacher on various topics, and on teaching he says that the teacher is only part of the process for a learner. A music teacher can explain rhythm, but cannot place an internal metronome inside a student’s soul.

The diptych cruciform painting also includes part of a page from a booklet printed in 1956 presenting to a youngster the information that at the time was the latest in the field of energy. This was new knowledge for a growing society. There are also two old photographs. One is a children seated for a portrait, and the other an older couple, perhaps of the age to have either participated in or at least witnessed the results of the latest research on the atom at the time of the publication of that booklet.

May teachers also be students.

(Photo not available.)