Page 9 - Making Instruction Work

FM 3/4/97 1:55 PM Page vii

preface vii

And from that day on, whenever people heard that Doodly
was on the program, they would come from miles and miles
and miles around to watch. Oh, not to watch him Trip the
Light Fantastic, of course, because he hadn’t actually been
taught how to do that. If truth be told, they came to watch
Doodly squat.
And the moral of this fable is that . . .

SKILL DOES NOT BLOOM FROM WORDS ALONE.

Or, in somewhat less poetic terms, telling isn’t the same as
teaching. Though it is a remarkable accomplishment to have
developed the skills and knowledge needed to be considered
competent in one’s craft, those skills are not the same as those
needed for teaching that craft. Just as an ability to make a
tuba is not the same as an ability to play one, an ability to
play one is not the same as an ability to teach someone else to
do likewise.
Therefore, those who would like to share their competence
with others will take steps to learn the skills by which that end
is accomplished.
Robert F. Mager
Carefree, Arizona Carefree, Arizona
January 1997