Publish at February 18 2026 Updated February 18 2026
As a trainer, how can you be sure you've passed on knowledge to learners efficiently? Very often, school reports are filled out on the basis of one-off assessments that don't necessarily reflect understanding of the concepts covered.
What's more, depending on the format of the day, a pupil may hit or miss in an assessment, which does not automatically reflect his or her level of understanding. So, based on specific notions, we're going to demonstrate that there are other ways of checking, as a trainer and pedagogue, that you've played your role as facilitator correctly.
These are analogy and curiosity, one being the outcome of understanding and the other the process of understanding.
When it comes to learning, especially at primary level, phonology, phonetics, grammar and spelling - to name but a few examples - are the basic skills targeted. They are tested through text and voice. We can be sure that word spelling, syntactic structure, word pronunciation, etc. have been well acquired through the learners' reading and written production.
We're talking here about skills that are on display every day, not spontaneous assessments that can be biased. If, in these subjects, we can be sure of what has been learned, because everyday life invites us to practice it, what about other disciplines? Is it enough to carry out an assessment in geography, history or mathematics to be sure that objectives have been achieved? Teachers' experience shows that this is not necessarily the case; other criteria exist and can help trainers to better evaluate their teaching. Let's start by drawing parallels or analogies.
Analogy, or by extension parallelization, is an important element in the quest for certainty in teaching. As part of my training activities in public speaking, I've been experimenting with the use of proverbs with teenagers. To find out how well they've grasped a proverb, I ask them to use it in an example different from my own, and very often I judge their understanding of the proverb - which requires a certain intelligence - by the examples they offer.
In this sense, the illustration "a person who takes good care of his children when he's old will also deserve the assistance of his children" to explain the proverb, "tire yourself for the earth and it will tire for you" served as an example for me.
A young learner, to let me know that she had understood the proverb well, gave this other example: "A pupil who studies his lessons well will do a good job when he grows up". Another suggested "If you plant several apple trees in your yard, they'll produce plenty of fruit for the whole family". To be more concrete, he added: "If I see my daddy digging holes to plant trees every day, and I say to him 'Daddy, why are you always working', he can answer me 'Get tired for the earth and it will get tired for you'". Still based on proverbs, their use in real-life communication situations makes them easier to apply. Illustrations are therefore made by analogy. The example is better than the lesson, but an example that comes more from the learners is three times better than the trainer's example.
"From an anthropological point of view, analogy is a form of thought that postulates that things, beings and events reflect one another. For analogical thinking, to know is to decipher similarities. Conceived in this way, analogy is the foundation of all gnoses. Through the links it creates, analogy produces "a cosmic feeling in which order, symmetry and perfection triumph" (Gadoffre, Walker, Tripet 1980:50).
From the point of view of the history of ideas, this form of thought reached its apogee during the Renaissance, when the "sublunary" world was, through analogy, brought into correspondence with the celestial spheres and, generally, with the divine world." (Plantin, 2011: 111)
Knowledge is thus further explored through analogy. It's only logical, then, that analogy should also serve as an approach to evaluation, just like curiosity.
As a trainer, if you're faced with a group that's brimming with curiosity, chances are you're on the right track. When a learner shows an accumulated interest in a subject, asks questions and seeks to find out more, this indicates not only an assimilation of basic knowledge, but also a desire to exploit and deepen concepts.
This dynamic goes beyond simple memorization and reflects an ability to think critically and make connections, making learning more meaningful. It's this curiosity that needs to be encouraged, ensuring educators that learners have not only acquired the fundamentals, but are also ready to apply them in a variety of contexts and continue their quest for knowledge.
Curiosity education has been recognized by a number of educationalists and institutions. The Académie de Nantes in France, in an article aimed at the teaching of physical education and sports, postulates that "An education in curiosity is an asset for learning, whatever the practice proposed". By promoting curiosity, teaching staff acquire a powerful tool for assessing skills.
In addition to curiosity and logic, we can also add creativity. Creativity could be an extension of analogy, insofar as it involves coming up with new examples and ideas.
Incidentally, spot assessment is certainly the beginning of certainty in the transmission of knowledge, but it needs to be accompanied by other forms of demonstration, such as analogy and curiosity, to better measure the achievement of learning objectives. There can be no such thing as too much curiosity in learning.
References
Benetau, Damien, 2013, "Cultiver la curiosité des élèves : Avoir envie, c'est être en vie!",
https://urlr.me/GXpF9u (.pdf)
Plantin, Christian, (2011), "Analogie et métaphore argumentatives", A contrario N0 16, sociales, pp 110-130 - https://shs.cairn.info/revue-a-contrario-2011-2-page-110?lang=fr
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