Guest guest Posted April 15, 2005 Report Share Posted April 15, 2005 There is that offensive line that " those who can't, teach " , meaning they cannot practice their trade so they choose to teach it instead. I have already made the case that I think teaching is an independent profession from TCM and does not overlap, per se. The most knowledgeable subject matter experts are not necessarily effective teachers. the one who devotes his time to research and scholarship will be this person. Likewise for the experienced clinician. the most effective clinicians whose skills are a result of experience will be those with the most experience. That means that teachers need to accept that there are other outside the field who are better at certain things. I don't mean anyone who primarily practices will be more effective in clinic than one who primarily teaches. You still need aptitude and you need to have read the right books. So even the best clinicians depend to some extent on teachers and scholars. Likewise scholars learn from the experience of clinicians and may have been set upon their path by a teacher. the role of the teacher is to teach, which includes motivation, assessment of student needs and performance, creation of objectives, lesson plans that carry them out, encoding of memory and evaluation of the final results, which taken together are called Instructional Design, a professional graduate level field of study. The dean at PCOM as well as the president have advanced degrees in Instructional design and have applied these principles in developing the curriculum. In a program that involves practical skills, it is necessary that teachers have a high degree of clinical competence if they work in this arena. However, they need not be the leading clinicians in america in order to effectively fulfill this role. Students are being prepared for practice, not for mastery. You need to be able to convey to your students all they need to know to practice effectively. but you don't need to know every detail or idiosyncrasy of CM in order to do this. You do need to learn how to apply the principles of instructional design, though. As for scholarship, again it is necessary that you fully and deeply know all that you need to convey to your students. But it is not necessary that teachers be the leading subject matter experts (SMEs) in their fields. Teachers need to be familiar with the consensus of leading SMEs and be sure to convey ideas in this context and be willing to defer questions until checking with another SME, when necessary. That, in fact, is a key purpose of this forum and one I have used it for frequently. Scholars may sometimes lose sight of practical matters or not see the forest for the trees and thus end up shooting way over the heads of their students before fundamentals are firmly established. I have great respect for both clinicians and scholars, yet frequently have encountered others in our field who believe those who can't, teach. Or even worse, those who do not primarily run private practices have no right to teach at all. This so completely turns logic on its head, that I can't even dignify it with a response. And for the record, this post is not directed at any one. It, like usual, is merely a reflection of a few passing thoughts stimulated by numerous influences. It is rare that a message on this list is the sole instigator for me to post. It is far more likely that a post or series of posts happens to topically converge with other inquiries and explorations of mine. Chinese Herbs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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