Teaching requires emotional connection

The best teachers are those who connect emotionally with their students.

Whether it's in kindergarten storytime or a graduate seminar, real learning takes place only when emotions are part of the experience. Why? First, teachers motivate their students through emotions. Next, when teachers understand a student's emotional reaction, they can better tailor their approach. Great teachers know how to do this (and great coaches do too -- just watch 'em!).

Of course, someone can read facts from a printed page and memorize them. But in my view that's not genuine learning. Learning is behavior change. In other words, when you really learn, you do things different. People that don't learn keep doing the same behaviors over and over.

Much of the time the teaching/learning process looks something like this . . .

emotional connection --> motivation --> trying new behavior --> learning (behavior change)

-- BJ Fogg