Show and Tell or Show and Teach

Episode #300 with Dr. M. Nader Sharifi

A teacher can forever change the trajectory of your life. Good teachers tell, and better ones teach — but the great ones inspire. And today, Kirk Behrendt brings on Dr. Nader Sharifi to talk about what makes a great teacher, how you can improve your teaching, and the future of learning. For more on how you can get the most out of your education, listen to Episode 300 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Even bad teachers can benefit you in dentistry.

Acknowledge your mistakes when teaching. Don't just show the successes.  

When you're teaching, it’s not about you — it’s about the people listening.

Some teachers, you want to read. Others, you want to see.

Past masters are also great teachers.

Quotes:

“By the time we get to this point in our careers where we’re dentists, we have seen every conceivable flavor of educator in front of us. We have to have embraced education in some way, because to leave high school and go to college, you need to be willing to learn. And then to even leave college and go to dental school, you're committed about learning and you're not shy of it. And to take that step is a significant challenge for some of us, partly because of who’s taught us. So, we need good teachers to help us continue on our processes.” (05:29—06:13)

“To learn what's a good teacher, we also have to learn and understand what's a bad teacher. In dentistry, it seems to me that our bad teachers can also benefit us just a little bit, in some regard. So, that's really the “show and tell” part of it.” (06:15—06:32)

“Sometimes, I'll go to a conference, and there’ll be a presenter who will be full of glitz and glamour, and a beautiful patient from out of town who travels to see them, and has this humongous, multi-disciplinary treatment plan that took three years to complete, and it’s just spectacular dentistry. And at the end of the presentation, I realize I haven't learned how to do that. I saw that it was possible, but I didn't learn how to do it.” (06:33—07:06)

“The benefit [of show and tell] is, I see the potential for dentistry. I see the potential for myself. I see the opportunity. But I'm not able to do it. And that's okay. I just chose, in my path, I don't want to do that. I don't want to be that type of speaker. I don't want to be that type of teacher. I don't want to be that type of person. I want to be able to teach, and show a protocol, and show a process that's available to the participant in the audience. And so, that's not the show and tell, that's the show and teach.” (07:11—07:52)

“If we only show success and we don't acknowledge the mistakes we made to get there, if we only show success and we don't show the trouble that occurs in achieving that, it’s really a false reality.” (13:58—14:11)

“I was as far to one end of the scale as possible, being a presenter who would connect well with dentists much more so than I would connect with dental students, which was at the other end of the scale, because my first foray in teaching, which was inspired by some of my teachers, was in dental school. And it failed horribly. It didn't work well for me. I wasn't good at it, I didn't get positive results from the students. It wasn't working well, but I had a desire to do it. And I ended up evolving into having the opportunity to do it at the podium rather than in the classroom. And something resonated.” (19:14—20:02)

“Zoom doesn't give us that opportunity [to interact] the way that the live meeting will. However, for the first time in my life, I sat down with my laptop in my favorite reading chair in my bedroom and attended a symposium. And when the speaker said something that just astounded me, I could pause it, reverse it 15 seconds, write it down, listen to it again and...