When asked the question, 'Think of the best teacher you ever had. What did that teacher do to make you consider him or her your best teacher?' the answers are never 'My best teacher gave us lots of worksheets to do,' or 'My best teacher covered a lot of material.' Instead, typical answers range from the teachers who challenged, to the teachers who cared and the teachers who loved their subjects. Babbage calls those teachers 'extreme teachers,' whose ultimate goal for students is 'extreme learning'. In the 'extreme learning' classroom, the students and the teacher create learning experiences which connect the real-life knowledge, talents, and interests of students with what needs to be learned today in the standards-based school curriculum. School becomes relevant to the outside world, and working harder to learn at school becomes important, beneficial, and meaningful. Babbage uses anecdotes, both his own and hypothetical, to demonstrate 'extreme learning'. He shows the disparity between training and understanding, where students are trained in standards, but they begin to truly understand the real-life application. 'Extreme learning' creates a partnership between teacher and student, where all learn and improve from each other.
Keen Babbage shows educators how to cause extreme learning in the classroom while also creating a classroom learning community in which the teacher and the student team up in a vibrant, symbiotic, fulfilling partnership.
