Prerequisite is another term for pre-existing knowledge that is reckoned to be defined as a thing that is required as a prior condition for something else to happen or exist. In terms of teaching, the idea of prerequisite means that a teacher cannot teach any new knowledge without checking what students already know about the basics of the topic that is intended for them to learn. Also, prerequisite is not a method of teaching. It is simply a common sense understanding to the idea that a baby cannot walk before crawling like he cannot run before walking. Meaning that a prerequisite is a sort of awareness in the natural process of skills or knowledge acquisition in the operation of learning progression.
As a result, teachers in the arena of teaching, all subjects combined, must be aware that they cannot start teaching any lesson from what they know about a topic but rather from what their students know about that topic while unfolding slowly but surely what is somehow unknown to become known to their students. Teachers have to check and recheck back and forth their students knowledge (prerequisites) as a way to review information, reinforce knowledge and remedy any misconception because a prerequisite is simply anything that one not only needs but also must know and/or understand first before attempting to learn or grasp something new. The natural logic of walking before running.
Consider this: Can a foreign language teacher or a teacher of any language ask any beginner learner to spell a word in the language before looking into their knowledge about the alphabet and its pronunciation? Here the language alphabet is deemed to be the prerequisite in learning the spelling or orthography of the language. Also, can language teachers invite their students to write a paragraph before paving the way for them with short and long sentences? The formation of simple and complex sentences are the prerequisites of building paragraphs. Furthermore, can a teacher of Math teach his students how to add, subtract, multiply and divide before checking that his students are at least familiar with numbers in terms of identifying, naming and understanding the weight of some basic numbers? Numbers in this instance are reckoned to be the prerequisite of basic operations in Math.
Consequently, such understanding of the concept of prerequisite can be applied in the beginning of any lesson no matter what the topic or subject is. Meaning that teachers regardless of what they are teaching should always at least meet their students half way whenever they are teaching a new topic. This would help teachers assess their students before jumping to the unknown and losing their students instantly. Plus, it is vital that teachers step back and remind themselves how they learned the current knowledge in order to reach the minds of learners and be able to connect with that prior knowledge, which will help them build a good foundation before starting to construct the new knowledge.
Now, while it is not always easy to determine what is required in a lesson to be successful as there are many factors that can be involved, it is quite necessary that teachers have a clear thought about appropriate prerequisites to a certain extent as those prerequisites are likely to depend mostly on the success of the lesson. Finally, I must advise teachers that in teaching it is essential to always take a step backward to be in students' shoes and empathize with them in terms of knowledge and emotions before moving forward with anything new in the making.
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