I believe that in life, we can always learn something from everyone around us. Be it on what to do, or what not to do. Everyone has lessons from their own experiences that they can pass on, and then we can make the conscious decision on what to do from it.
In my direct and extended family, there are quite a few professional educators (four the last time I counted, though some are retiring/retired) and is a profession I've dabbled in. During my furloughed time, I started teaching and guiding a few people on learning programming and widening their knowledge of different frameworks and ideas. There are many lessons I've learnt from this, along with a few opinions I've formed too about the state of education in the UK. Those opinions will be interspersed with the lessons.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You can only explain how to drink, and why it needs water
You can't teach anyone anything that they don't wish to learn. That said, you also need to provide the opportunity for them to gather interest in it too. I remember when I was in school a question that was constantly asked. "When am I ever going to use this?" I believe the quality of an educator is dictated by many factors, but one of them is definitely to show how useful what they're teaching is and where it sits in the big picture.
I've been quite lucky to have taught people who are already interested in the topic that I'm teaching (mainly because they needed to learn to advance at their job or get a job... money is a great motivator), so I thankfully never had the question posed to me. That said, there have been plenty of times where I've needed to show the usefulness of learning something, especially when it is quite boring.
So how can we make that easier? How can we give people an opportunity to become interested and want to learn? I believe the answer lies in independent learning and projects, where what you are teaching is put into practice. To avoid burn out, you alternate between project work and teaching ideas/concepts. That way, as the learner's understanding develops, so too does the project that they're creating. You lead them to water and show them how to drink, and let them do the rest for themselves.
In an education system that relies on box ticking and standardised tests, there is no real room left for independent thought and projects. There may be solutions and ways around it, but that would take real work from people far smarter than me. This is just my thoughts and advice that might be useful for people teaching outside of an educational setting.
Let them flail, don't let them drown.
Part of the learning process (in my eyes anyway) is flailing around while struggling to come to grips with a new idea or technology or putting a concept into practice. One of the ways that people say they were taught how to swim was to be thrown in the pool at the deep end and left to panic, react, and learn very quickly on the fly (doggy paddle anyone?). Now I don't know if that's true or not (it probably is in some cases), but it makes for a great metaphor.
One of my students is being taught something that is not completely alien to them, but is very far away from what they're normally used to. As a programmer, you need to always be hungry to learn and step out of your comfort zones, so this is what I try to teach as well. As a result of this, whenever I assign tutorials or tasks, there is always a lot of flailing and simple concepts are quickly forgotten. I believe the struggle of learning is also what cements it though, so I take a very hands-off approach to teaching, but checking in often enough to make sure the will to live isn't lost.
If, however, there is too much flailing, a change needs to be made before they drown. If there's too much struggle, change it up. Too much flailing can result in lost motivation and interest and so, sometimes you need to change your approach. Whether it's hand holding for certain parts. Giving them a reference to look at. Or even walking them through the basics again till they get the light bulb moment. One skill I've seen from my favourite educators is the ability to change on the fly, adapting and reacting as required, for whoever needs it.
Remote teaching is insanely different. Never underestimate the power of diagrams (respect the whiteboard)
Whenever I've taught at jobs, I've always had the power of a whiteboard or chalkboard to back me up. It makes breaking down complex ideas or explaining top level architecture the simplest thing. Diagrams are very powerful, but the ability to let the students interact and share their own understanding is powerful too.
Controlling a mouse and doing digital art has always been an impossible task for me. I completely suck at it. On PDFs where you can add a signature, it takes me about 7 attempts just to get something that looks reasonably like my real signature.
So when I'm teaching remotely and wanting to show how ideas link really quickly on the fly, it's the most difficult thing for me. Unless I prepare in advance with nice diagrams through draw.io, it feels like being stuck up a certain creek with a broken paddle.
The only solution I've come up with so far for this is actually to use a smartphone as the whiteboard. There's plenty of free drawing apps and it's the closest I've come to a real whiteboard on a budget. However, one really tech savvy teacher with access to a VR headset actually used Half Life Alyx which is a VR game that has a fully working whiteboard within it. If money is no object and you often teach remotely, that might be the best way for a long time to come!
You don't know what you're talking about and none of this will work in giant classes of 30-40 students
Probably not. I'm not a professional. I dabble at best. These are just my thoughts and ideas that I've picked up along the way. If they can be adapted and made useful for larger classes, well even better. But no, I don't know what I'm talking about.