Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them.
— <p>T.E. Lawrence, <em>Twenty-seven Articles</em>, August 1917, quoted in Scott Anderson, <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BH0VSPI?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=213733&amp;creative=393177&amp;creativeASIN=B00BH0VSPI&amp;linkCode=shr&amp;tag=cat0be5-20">Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East</a>.</p>
<p>This piece of advice to young British officers beginning their roles as military advisors in the Middle East during WWI struck me also as good advice for teachers — at least this one. I have always liked the <em>idea</em> of students doing presentations in class because it (a) forces them to learn a single topic in greater depth than they otherwise would, (b) it gives them practical experience in organizing and delivering a presentation, and © it breaks the monotony of a lecture given by the teacher, again.</p>
<p>But, I don’t do it often. I am always worried that the information presented by students will be wrong, and then I’ll have to correct it for the class. The presentations are rarely well-organized, and more rarely delivered well. And the whole process generally takes longer than it should, I feel. I could give the class the same information, better, more efficiently.</p>
<p>But that’s Lawrence’s point: it’s better that students do it tolerably well than I do it perfectly. It’s the only way they’ll actually get better at the things I feel they don’t do well. <em>They</em> need the practice; and I need to <em>teach</em> them the necessary skills.</p>