If you could gather six of the planet’s best teachers in one place for three days, who would you choose?
Would you pick:
- Rafe Esquith, who teaches Los Angeles inner-city fifth-graders to perform Shakespeare?
- Hans Jensen, the world’s best cello teacher?
- Michael Sandel, whose Harvard class is so life-changing it was just turned into a public-television special?
- How about Idan Ravin, basketball’s Hoops Whisperer, who ignites NBA players to new levels of performance?
It’s not a hypothetical question. Some educators I know are aiming to do just that — to assemble six great teachers from sports, art, music, and math for a three-day workshop. The idea: to create a miniature Florence of master teaching. To explore the deeper parallels between these teachers; to see how they make emotional connections, to see how they work their magic. (Which isn’t really magic, of course, but rather a skill set that can be analyzed, copied, and taught.)
More to come on this — but in the meantime, which teachers would you choose?