作者: John Cowan

Gregory Pastoll has been teaching for more than 30 years. All that time he has been fascinated by how people learn, and he has been a keen observer of how teaching sometimes does, and sometimes doesn”t assist people to learn. He is currently in his ninth year of teaching basic mechanical engineering, and has also taught English as a foreign language in South Korea and Austria.  For brief spells in other schools, he has also taught mathematics, physics, art and woodwork. For 14 years he was a consultant on tertiary teaching at the University of Cape Town, where he studied the teaching methods of academics and the methods used in tutorials. This work led to the publication of his book “Tutorials That Work” in 1992. He has a Ph D in Higher Education, and has run seminars for academics at 3 other universities in South Africa. In his own teaching, Greg is passionate about promoting self-reliance, will-power, and exuberance about being human. He is continually developing materials and apparatus, and designing learning events to make his students feel for themselves the intrinsic excitement of mastering the material. Greg believes that the important thing about learning is not so much what you study, but the characteristics you develop as a result of engaging with the material. He has many interests, among them painting, violin-making, and writing childrens” stories. One of his children”s musicals was performed for the first time in 2007, and his first children”s book appeared in 2008. He has also designed, produced and marketed a board game to promote the sport of cricket.