Teach the Way They Learn, Not the Way You Were Taught
Most of us teach the way we were taught. It is the most natural habit in the profession — and one of the quietest ways we fail a third of every classroom.
Ask a teacher how they arrived at their teaching style, and very few will describe a deliberate choice. Most inherited it — from the teacher who stood in front of them at age twelve, from the lecturer who trained them, from the school that hired them. We teach forward what was taught to us. The trouble is, what worked on us was never guaranteed to work on everyone in front of us now.
One method, many minds
In any classroom of thirty children, you will find students who absorb a concept the moment they see it drawn on the board, others who need to hear it explained aloud, others who only truly understand it once their hands are on it, and others still who need to sit with it quietly, on their own, before it makes sense. A single lecture-and-copy method — however well delivered — will reach some of these students fully, some of them partially, and lose the rest entirely, not because they are less capable, but because the method never met them where they were.
This is not a call to abandon structure. It is a call to build variety into that structure on purpose, rather than by accident.
What this looks like in a real classroom
It does not require rebuilding your curriculum from scratch. It requires noticing, and adjusting. A concept explained verbally can also be sketched as a diagram. A rule stated abstractly can also be demonstrated with a physical example. A lesson delivered entirely by the teacher can include five minutes where students explain it back to each other, in their own words — often the single fastest way to discover who has actually understood, and who has simply nodded along.
Assessment deserves the same rethink. A student who freezes during a timed, purely written test may reason beautifully out loud, or build something functional with their hands. If our only measurement tool is the written exam, we are not just testing knowledge — we are quietly testing a narrow style of demonstrating it, and mislabelling the rest as failure.
Why this matters more than it seems to
A child who is taught in a way that never fits them does not usually conclude "this method doesn't suit me." They conclude "I am not good at this" — and often, "I am not good at school." That belief, formed early, can outlast the subject that caused it by decades. Getting the method right is not a teaching-technique footnote. It is one of the most direct ways we protect a child's belief in their own ability to learn.
I don’t just educate — I elevate, equip, and empower.Dr. Edmundking Ogheneochuko
This is the thinking behind every teacher-development programme at The Edmundking Academy — helping educators build a repertoire, not just a routine. Explore our School of Education, or take our personality assessment to better understand your own natural teaching and learning style.