MATERIALS, TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT

Content, that is knowledge, understanding and attitudes, can usually be taught with very little equipment except a blackboard and chalk, paper and pens, and even those may not be necessary. A session may be conducted under a tree!

Skills, which are the basis of RTC learning, can only be taught properly with the proper equipment, tools and materials. If you do not have these you have to decide what to do.

It may be possible to substitute: a table instead of a work bench; another student holding a piece of wood for sawing instead of a vice; different foods for a recipe.

Many skills, however, are impossible to learn without the proper equipment. You cannot learn to sew without cloth; or to repair an outboard motor without an engine.

Skills cannot be learnt through blackboard diagrams, talk and student notes and handouts. Unless RTC teaching involves doing and practicing skills we are wasting our time.

Blackboard theory may be useful sometimes. If you don’t have all the tools you want students to learn about, you could illustrate some on the blackboard so they are aware of them when they see them. However, this should not include tools they are never likely to see! You may give recipes in cooking without actually making them.

But a whole course of carpentry without wood or saws; teaching how engines work without handling one; diagrams showing the parts of a chicken without seeing and looking after one: all these, and many more activities which sometimes go on in RTCs, are useless to the students. They will not be able to go home and carry out these skills, which is the whole reason for coming to an RTC.

If, therefore, you do not have the equipment or materials to carry out your aims and objectives, you may decide not to teach that skill or topic. If this happens too often you may have to talk to your Principal about the whole objective of teaching your course at the RTC.