Two Choices:  Clerical Teaching or Disciplined Teaching Today’s popular way of teaching is called clerical teaching.  Clerical means the teacher is expert in organizing and distributing materials, giving perfunctory explanations, administering compensatory instruction, collecting, grading, and filing pre-made materials. The beginning student attempts requested tasks after receiving the printed page along with its perfunctory explanation. He utilizes his natural learning strength (which is an “oblivious strength” since he was born with it and did not arrive at it through instruction),” and his natural learning weakness (which is an “oblivious weakness” since he was born with it and did not arrive at it through lack of instruction). Since clerical teaching’s goal is covering the content and assignment completion, not on making disciples of students, it relies on piles and piles of printed matter.  The student uses at the most two of his four language-learning avenues at a time: largely seeing and writing; rarely speaking and hearing, but seldom all four learning avenues at the same time:  he regularly performs with half his language-learning neurology tied behind his back! Whether the student performs well or poorly, he is in either case executing an oblivious (mindless, insensible, ignorant, unconscious) neurological performance. Consider this historically verifiable fact:  “Upon receiving clerical teaching, how well a student does or does not learn has little or no bearing on what the teacher said or did.” Current testing methods also solicit from the student fragmented neurological responses.  The historical record shows not only does learning this way causes neurological deficiencies, but testing this way does not furnish reliable data. The historical way of teaching may be described as full-spectrum neurological response instruction.  It is, in fact, disciplined teaching.  The teacher is in the process of “disciple-ing” the student. Disciplined teaching means all four of the student’s language-learning avenues—speaking, hearing, writing, and seeing—work together in complementary, inseparable partnership.  Each student’s previously “untaught” language-learning avenues are being “taught,” therefore are changing, learning to work together, supporting, even remediating each other (think of that!). The result is the disciple epitomizes the teacher’s words and practices; the student becomes indoctrinated and well-practiced and neurologically stable in impenetrable language arts knowledge and skills that enable him to attain proficiency, and to maintain it, whether or not the teacher is present!  Disciplined teaching’s goal is student proficiency. From both historical and present day records, we can verify that when this method of instruction is administered, every student learns optimally regardless of his natural neurological strength(s), and his natural neurological weakness(es). Learn to engage (employ) the disciple­-ing process.  Prove that disciplined teaching (not clerically formatted teaching, diagnosing, or off-hand guessing) is the only course of action that tells the truth about what a student can and cannot do.  Learn to teach the way our Designer-brains are wired to learn…and love it!