Teaching

by L. Ron Hubbard

If one wishes a subject to be taught with maximal effectiveness, he should:

1. Present it in its most interesting form.
   1. Demonstrate its general use in life.
   2. Demonstrate its specific use to the student in life.
2. Present it in its simplest form (but not necessarily its most elementary).
   1. Gauge its terms to the understanding of
      the student.
   2. Use terms of greater complexity only as understanding progresses.
3. Teach it with minimal altitude (prestige).
   1. Do not assume importance merely because of a knowledge of the subject.
   2. Do not diminish the stature of the student or his own prestige because he does not know the subject.
   3. Stress that importance resides only in individual skill in using the subject and, as to the Instructor, assume prestige only by the ability to use it and by no artificial caste system.
4. Present each step of the subject in its most fundamental form with minimal material derived therefrom by the Instructor.
   1. Insist only upon definite knowledge of axioms and theories.
   2. Coax into action the student’s mind to derive and establish all data which can be derived or established from the axioms or theories.
   3. Apply the derivations as action insofar as the class facilities permit, coordinating data with reality.
5. Stress the values of data.
   1. Inculcate the individual necessity to evaluate axioms and theories in relative importance to each other and to question the validity of every axiom or theory.
   2. Stress the necessity of individual evaluation of every datum in its relationship to other data.
6. Form patterns of computation in the individual with regard only to their usefulness.
7. Teach where data can be found or how it can be derived, not the recording of data.
8. Be prepared, as an Instructor, to learn from the students.
9. Treat subjects as variables of expanding use which may be altered at individual will. Teach the stability of knowledge as resident only in the student’s ability to apply knowledge or alter what he knows for new application.
10. Stress the right of the individual to select only what he desires to know, to use any knowledge as he wishes, that he himself owns what he has learned.