Editor,

RE: "The magic tricks to effective teaching” (The New Times, August 30).

The author makes some valid points once she gets past the quote in the first paragraph that is most unhelpful for less experienced teachers as noted, as well as education ministry officials who are designing professional development plans to increase teacher effectiveness.

Yes, a student-centered classroom is far more effective for learning than the didactic, teacher-centered classroom, though the good teachers know when to employ both of those approaches. Students are rationale human beings who are innately curious. If they are bored and "act out” it is most likely because the class is in fact boring or irrelevant.

You can tell a good teacher who is working effectively quite easily in terms of the proper pedagogical approach: is the teacher asking students challenging questions that require the student to think about the proper response and not just regurgitate a memorized fact?

 Further is the day’s learning objective made clear at the beginning of each class? Would we want to carry out our daily jobs without knowing what was expected of us?

Finally, does the teacher make the topic relevant? This does not require false connections to modern times; rather, one can return to any period of history to find lessons that carry with them issues that remain relevant today. Such a classroom is found in some schools in Rwanda; the goal must be to make this be the modus operandi in all schools.

 Rhett