Improving classroom teaching: why the “how” matters more than the “what”.
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If we really want to improve teaching in the classroom, It's not enough to change the curriculum: we have to look at the real act of teaching. In education, we often talk about what is taught as if learning were an automatic consequence of the content. We change syllabi, add competencies, update regulations, and when something isn't working, we tweak the map again. However, the classroom isn't a document: it's a place where a mind decides—or not—to move. Therefore, before asking ourselves if the curriculum is modern or if the assessment is fair, it's worth asking a more uncomfortable and more realistic question: What are we doing to make knowledge desirable, understandable, and possible?
Improving classroom teaching: the 3 variables we can actually control
If we reduce the system to its main levers, the following appear three variables that we can influence. The first is the curriculumWhat is taught. The second is the teachingHow it is taught. The third is the assessmentHow do we verify if what has been taught has actually been learned? The problem isn't that these three variables exist; the problem is the mental order with which we treat them. In practice, the system becomes obsessed with the first and third. We decide on content and measure results. But we relegate to the background the variable that, in reality, decides the outcome from minute one: the quality of the act of teach.
“When we talk about improve classroom teaching, We're talking about attention, rhythm, clarity, and meaning; not to do more, but to teach better.”
Providing content is not teaching. Providing content is presenting information. Teaching is enabling that information to be transformed into comprehension, in ability, in criterion and in real-life transfer. And that doesn't happen through accumulation, but through construction. Teaching is the bridge between a concept and a person; and a bridge isn't sustained solely by "what needs to be given," but by the way in which it is taught. accompanies, HE explains, HE embodies and turns significant.
Here something emerges that the system usually avoids because it's uncomfortable: teaching has a dimension of art. Not art as spectacle, but art as shape. As presence. As the capacity to sustain the non-violent care, to open curiosity without manipulation, of turning an abstract idea into experience. That's why theater is such a precise metaphor. Theater doesn't "explain" an emotion: it makes it vivid. And good teaching doesn't "explain" a concept: it transforms it. habitable. The student does not learn only from what he hears; he learns from what the teacher achieves. activate within it.
Teaching is not a formality between curriculum and exam: it is the act that ignites the desire to understand.
When we ignore this dimension, what we're already seeing happens: increasingly overloaded curricula, increasingly frequent assessments, increasingly disengaged students, and increasingly burned-out teachers. And then we look for individual culprits. We point to the "unmotivated" student, the "absent" family, or the "uninnovative" teacher. But the core issue is systemic: we've turned education into a circuit of content + control, And we have weakened the heart of the process, which is the human encounter where someone transmits something with sense.
Passion—properly understood—is not an ornament. It is a access road. Not because the teacher has to "entertain," but because without emotion there is no sustained attention, And without sustained attention, there is no stable learning. Passion is the visible form of meaning. That's what it tells the student: "this matters." And when something matters, effort ceases to be punishment and becomes address.
“Improving classroom teaching It requires an uncomfortable decision: to stop measuring only results and start to take care of the process.”
How to improve classroom teaching without falling into “more content” and “more control”
If we wanted to reorder priorities to achieve real results, the order should be different. First, define what is essential: Less, but better. Then, invest in education: real training in didactics, communication, neurodevelopment and in the art of explaining. And finally, evaluate for adjust, not to punish. The evaluation should be a mirror that improves teaching, not a hammer that labels the student.
“The problem is that the system discusses curriculum and evaluation, but if we want improve classroom teaching, the real lever is in the didactics.”
Because, in the end, teaching isn't about transferring information. Teaching is mobilize. To open an internal door so that the student wants to enter. And if we truly want to transform education, the question isn't "Have we covered the curriculum?" The question is different, much more demanding: Have we succeeded in making that mind, today, more eager to learn than yesterday?
If you are a teacher, therapist, or family member, this text may leave you with a useful discomfort: it is not enough to "cover content" or "measure results" if the act of teaching is not alive. And that life isn't a show: it's presence, intention, way of explaining, rhythm, look, art. And if: improve classroom teaching It starts there, with the "how" that we sustain every day.
I invite you to do three things: reflect, share And, if you need it, contact. Reflect: What aspect of your practice is more carefully considered, the "what" or the "how"? Share: Send this to the team stuck in the syllabus-exam loop. And if you'd like us to put it into practice (intervention design, teaching structure, support for teams or families), write to me by WhatsAppSometimes a well-guided conversation changes more than ten meetings.
Cristina Oroz Bajo
Founder of VICON Method, President of the Association for Aid to Children with Disabilities (AAND) and CEO of I Read Too.
Democratizing educational methodologies inclusive.