Verification is a key concept/practice for Jacotot's ignorant schoolmaster. Often it is a question of verification through reference to a shared object of study. ("I see ten people in this picture." -- Really? I see six, let's check...) But verification is also about testing mutual understanding between individuals, and, as such, about recognition.

The image of verification I think of is the scene in Godard's film Je Vous Salue Marie in which Marie allows Joseph to touch her belly. He reaches for her. She slaps away his hand several times, each time demanding he try again. Finally, he learns to touch her by withdrawing his hand. In this case, Joseph and Marie find mutual understanding through verification in the form of the repeated slaps and repeated tries. (Funny, also an example, a literal one, of resistance being fertile -- the pregnant Marie's resistance to Joseph makes it possible for them to find the mutual respect without which they can not be mother and father.)

Verification is important, among other reasons, because it enables the educator to break with the practice of explication, in which the student's identity is flattened, collapsed, and the teacher's truth is imposed. Instead, the educator seeks to establish understanding based on mutual respect and love.