The Right Way to Teach

The video that we saw for our enrichment workshop reminded me of the technique used throughout scouting when someone is being taught. The EDGE method, as it is referred to, stands for Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable. In my three years as a National Youth Leadership Training Course Leader, I  have seen this technique work on literally hundreds of people between the ages of 13 and 20. Every single one of the course participants walks away at the end of the week (yes, it is a 1 week course) talking about how now they have more confidence, they know how to handle something, or they have a better handle on life, just to name a few. In addition, my staff and I have received multiple phone calls, emails, and letters from parents asking us what we did with their children because the responsible young adults we returned to them could not possibly be the people they dropped off. I see all of this and then I have to ask myself, “If a team of 8 teenagers can get a group of 50 of their peers excited and interested in a topic and successfully teach it in a week, then why do so many people go to school for 20 years and come out feeling like they learned nothing?” And then I see exactly what the problem is – no one teaches, they just speak. They Explain and Enable, they don’t Demonstrate or Guide. Classes are very often lectures followed by homework where not understanding the concept is met with a notice of incompetence instead of further education. In the few instances where students get a demonstration and are guided through the process, there is a remarkable increase both in test scores and student happiness. So I have one more question: why doesn’t anyone else do this?