The following is a 19th century quotation that I ran across in an autobiography of Abraham Lincoln that I have been enjoying recently. This excerpt pertains to education (specifically literacy), but the parallels to coaching basketball immediately jumped out to me. I'm convinced that to be most effective as a coach or teacher, you don't necessarily teach someone a skill or a concept, you teach a student how to teach themselves the skill or concept. Effective education is not injecting information into the brain of a passive student. The student must be intrinsically motivated to learn as well.
"If your own endeavors are deficient, it is in vain that you have tutors, books, and the external apparatus of literary pursuits. You must love learning, you must possess it. In order to love it, you must feel its delights; in order to feel it delights, you must apply it, however irksome at first, closely, constantly, and for a considerable time. If you have a resolution enough to do this, you cannot but love learning; for the mind always loves that to which it has been so long, steadily, and voluntarily attached. Habits are formed, which render what was at first disagreeable, not only pleasant, but necessary."
- William Scott
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment