The Seven Laws of Teaching

Today let's see what we can learning from the education field. John Milton Gregory worked for 13 years to establish the foundation of the University of Illinois upon its conception in 1868. He was by all rights, an educational leader during his time. In 1884, he published The Seven Laws of Teaching.

Recognized as a timeless masterpiece, Gregory's book has been used as a staple to train 1000s of educators. In some way, all great leaders engage in the work of teaching. So the principles in this book have value for the leader.

The seven laws are to seven factors in teaching:
1. Two personal factors -- a teacher and a learner,
2. Two mental factors -- a common language of communication and a lesson to be communicated, and
3. Three functional processes -- acts of the teacher, acts of the learner, and a final act to test the result of the educational process.

The seven laws then as they are stated in The Seven Laws of Teaching. are:

1. A teacher must be the one who knows the lesson to be taught.

2. A learner is one who pays attention to the lesson.

3. The language used must be familiar to both the teacher and the learner.

4. The lesson must be explainable in terms of what the learner already knows.

5. A teacher must excite the learner and engage the learner's mind to grasp the desired truth.

6. A learner must think into one's own understanding the new truth.

7. The test of the teaching is the application of the new truth.

Gregory identifies some practices necessary to the teaching process.

1. The teacher must know the subject being taught. (p. 28)
2. The learner must be able to link the new truth to the greater body of truth and establish necessary relationships in order to understand it. (p. 30)
3. The learner must pay attention to the material to be learned. (p. 37)
4. The two chief hindrances to attention are apathy and distraction. (and he wrote this over 125 years ago! Some things never change, they only escalate. Some would say today we have more distractions and more apathy!) (p. 48)
5. Children are often compelled by their limited vocabulary to make incorrect word choices. (p. 57)
6. No teaching was ever more instructive than the parables of Jesus. (p. 61)

These are just a few of the gems found in this book. There are a total of 177 rules, principles and concepts included in this book. One hundred and twenty eight pages of educational leadership at your finger tips.

Enjoy it! I did.