What is General Didactics?

This is a question that I have never thought about before. I mean, we all use the word “Didactics” when referring to a class, like for example, “This class should be a little bit more didactic!”. But what does this word mean.

After a class I had this week I started getting thoughts on what it really means. To be very sincere, I think it has to do with the quality of education and also with how well a teacher must manage the contents to teach to the students. As a matter of fact, it must have relation on how to give meaning to a lesson or content.

Either way, a couple of definitions I stumbled upon after this thought on my way home (which was nearly an hour’s reflection) were the following:

di·dac·tic

adjective

1.       intended for instruction; instructive: didactic poetry.

2.       inclined to teach or lecture others too much: a boring, didactic speaker.

3.       teaching or intending to teach a moral lesson.

4.       didactics, ( used with a singular verb ) the art or science of teaching.

I obviously was surprised to find out that the second definition contradicts in many ways my thoughts. Luckily, the last definition made me reflect a little more and gave me a motive to keep searching. It’s an ART.

By art I understand and well know that it’s an expression and a way of applying creative skills and lots of imagination to visual means.

Anyway, a little further on my searches I came across many pages that focus on “Didactics” and found out that it refers to an improvement in information and that can only lead to knowledge. Now, knowledge is very important in didactics I believe because it’s a key goal to learning. But then again, leads me to think about how knowledge is obtained. Can it be methods? Can it be related to multiple intelligences?

Finally, I simply figured it out. As a conclusion, Didactics is as it is. It’s a method of teaching or guiding through creative skills which involves not only the students, but the teacher as well in the learning process, generating significant lessons to be applied on a daily basis. I may be wrong but this definition is the close that I can get to what “I” think Didactics is.