Observation Comments For Teacher: Fill & Download for Free

Mad Eye Moody's comment on Harry's socks:I'm surprised no one mentioned this yet! In the 4th book (Goblet of Fire), there's a scene in the Yule Ball where Mad Eye Moody makes a comment about Harry's mismatched socks being “nice”.While Harry merely grins in response, it is clearly implied that Moody could see through cloaks!What. The. Heck!Ponder on that for a minute.. Here's a teacher, with a special “see through” eye, telling a young adult “I just saw through your clothing..Nice socks dude!”And somehow, that creepy comment is not a big deal, and he continues to teach teenage boys, and girls at Hogwarts.IMHO that's extremely disturbing!Edit:Thank you all, for your observations/comments. Several people have commented that Moody’s remark was just an innocent one; in the sense it was just a teacher, complimenting a student’s garment. That might’ve been alright if he had commented on Harry’s robe, or anything that was only visible to a normal eye – not something that he could see through a cloak. Cannot speak on behalf of everyone, but I personally found that comment of his unsettling.That said, I’ve had a lot of Quorans comment on how the person in question is actually Barty Crouch Jr, and not the real Moody. This does explain the situation well. Perhaps the real Moody may have just kept mum – not giving away the fact that he has the power to see through cloaks!Lastly – I know that the Harry Potter world is just fantasy. I also understand if you start nitpicking on works of fantasy too much, the whole story falls apart. However, the question was geared particularly towards what I found disturbing about Harry Potter, and the answer reflects just that.

* * * * *There is a poignant scene in “Children of a Lesser God” — a film (& novel) set in a school for the deaf. A teacher is having an explosive argument with one of the students. The student is signing emphatically. The teacher is signing and yelling (the students lip-read). Suddenly, the student turns her back and walks away as the teacher continues to yell.A passing observer comments,“How intelligent! Yelling at the back of a deaf child.”* * * * *For this reason, I fall into perfect silence —— the moment anyone interrupts me.* * * * *

The concept of a lecture is rooted in the Christian idea of a sermon and the early universities were just that - giving sermons to aspiring monks. It is a fairly unnatural idea that we have tried to take beyond religion and impose upon every endeavor of learning - from kindergarten all the way to corporate training.Imagine how innovation and knowledge transfer happened in the earlier eras - when the Sumerians, Egyptians, Indians, Chinese, Persians, Greeks were all bringing new ways in agriculture, art, science, religion etc. Did that knowledge transfer happen through this concept of lecturing? Did the early Sumerian innovators say - "boys here is how you have to cultivate wheat" and proceed on a 4 year lecturing marathon?In the modern days, when we think of education, we think of that lecture hall with a podium where the preacher, oops teacher, stands and a row of benches where obedient, attentive students listen to the sermon without question.What did the online education companies do? They "revolutionized" the whole process by recording the lectures & putting the podium on the Internet. Phew, problem solved. They copied a broken, outdated, expensive system without any thought to changing the process or format. No wonder their engagement and graduation rates are so low.Traditionally, humans learned through three activities: 1) Observing, 2) Doing and 3) Talking. Imagine an early human learning pottery. He would seen a potting master do the art. After observing that he would try to get his hands on and then converse with the master and the other folks doing the same. Eventually, he will master pottery by observing, doing and talking - finetuning along the way.A class completely run on WhatsAppI have done a number of experiments in teaching both online and offline in the past and one of the most promising experiments for me was to teach almost completely on Whatsapp with Trello as the content sharing tool. I conducted two of these classes early last year - Jan and Fed that each went over a month long.I organized a class of about 40 into a central Whatsapp group and then also had 6 more groups of 6-7 people each. They were in 3 different continents and hardly anyone knew other before. The goal was to build the learning purely by observations, doing and talking.The students were given exercises everyday and have to complete, demonstrate and talk about it. Others observe, learn and then fine-tune.These classes were the most engaging of anything I have seen and it was hard as an instructor to keep up with the mindboggling variety of ideas of the students. This is just a starting point.Online education has to go way beyond lectures and have these for less than 10% of the activities. While it is tempting to records hours and hours of lectures & distribute it, the effectiveness is even lesser than it is in a classroom.The tools should primarily focus on strongly facilitating interactions in real time, building more competition, emphasis a lot on students sharing what they did & and other students observing/commenting what other students did. That is how we learned for most of history - observe, do, talk.