Comment by necovek
17 hours ago
I never taught myself, so take this with a grain of salt (though I do think it is extremely hard to do well).
I did, however, have a teacher who taught an advanced subject and I found his instruction so good that I did not have to bother with homework and assignments if I was happy with B grades — as I wasn't particularly motivated, only occassionaly did I put in the effort for an A.
I could, however, see the level of preparation that he put into it. When students confronted him with a difficult task, he'd not attack it right away but instead prepare for it for the next class so he'd provide the most effective instruction (it was not about being embarrased to show how exploration is sometimes messy because he'd quote that as the reason he won't do it right away). He was also so focused that he kicked out a school director when he tried to interrupt class with some sales pitch for whatever.
Not everybody could score a B grade just out of his instruction, but nobody was failing a class because the instruction was so good.
I will also openly admit: I had exactly one instructor like this in my life, so it is a high bar to clear ;)
I was lucky to attend a liberal arts college with a large and extremely pedagogy focused mathematics department, and all of my math classes there were like this. Engaging lectures, if I listened and wrote down everything on the board I would be able to get a B on the exams, even if I skimped on practice. Made it all the way to measure theory this way. They included in class group practice integrated with the lectures, which definitely helped.
St. Olaf College for those wondering.
I also went to a liberal arts college and, yes, my instructors care a lot about what I've learned. However, I am exactly that "asked educated question but sucked at homework and test" student. I usually got A or A- for first few assignments and just cannot finish any assignment near the end of the semester. The only exceptions are those "really hard and abstract" lessons where most of people got 70/100 for exams and I got 110/100 (literally).
I am 30 now and I realized that it was very much of ADHD symptoms. I am just an edge case of college education.
However, by genetics and mathematics we know that in every classroom, there are tons of “edge cases” from different perspectives.
I definitely struggled with feeling hyper engaged in the classroom setting, and then the jarring transition to the next class. By the time I switched between three and four subjects that day and on to do assignments, I was completely fried.
I'm having a hard time believing this. I've had one really good math teacher, his lecture prep was thorough, and the way he presented the material was very understandable, but without doing the problem sets, and some pre-exam review, I would not have been able to remember everything weeks later on an exam.
I can believe this. I had some subjects I was able to do this for going through Naval Nuclear Power school, and later college. Others I was unable to do this with.
Different people grasp things at different rates.
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Bette White has an honorary degree from there for her Rose Nieland character on Golden Girls
Loved my time at Olaf.
My son went there! Andrew the cello player.
schooling has to be designed around "average" teachers. Having someone who is gifted at teaching is great, but there wouldn't be many teachers if that was the standard. I often think when people idealize what schooling should be like it always seems like they are imagining teachers who are gifted.
Yes, as always, we like people to be good at their jobs instead of being bad at their jobs.
But, I think teaching skills, juuuust like any other skills can be taught and improved. So if we want good teachers and educators we need to build them up, not just relie on a few good ones to carry the day.
I personally reject the notion of competency in this as a matter of "giftedness", as something you either have or don't have. I think it's something you cam build. It's something you can teach. But you need to specifically aim for it.
You do understand at least intuitively that it's not even mathematically possible - let alone practically - to train 100 percent of teachers to be in the top 10 percent of teachers, right? The definition of "good" and "gifted" is only used relative to an average. No amount of training can make the average teacher better than the average teacher; it's a logical impossibility, and misunderstands the central effect of training and the goal of the person being trained. No student nor teacher cares about be trained to some objective standard of competence. Rather, the goal is to be better than one's peers and you can't have all teachers be better than all teachers unless you reject the concept of teachers being comparable.
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There’s a massive amount of duplicated effort in curriculum creation.
If the really gifted are documenting their lessons and publishing the framework other really good teachers can pickup where they left off.
Having those curriculums in a standard format would go a long way to making components interchangeable and remixable.
Just like in learn-by-doing, I believe some of it has to be done by the teacher themselves — by feeling where the pain is, they'll better focus on what matters.
Obviously, this starts mattering with more advanced education — not sure I can offer good insight for early education though :)
I think in this case, it was a teacher who is motivated, committed and focused on efficient, effective direct instruction followed by practice.
But I believe your point is great — we usually focus on average vs non-average student, and you are absolutely right that we need to focus on an average teacher just the same: what is the most effective way for a possibly non-motivated, less capable teacher to provide instruction with?
the market also prices out these gifted teachers.
you either struggle to pay the bills and teach -- a thankless job, often -- or you take those gifts and double your pay working in industry.
> I did, however, have a teacher who taught an advanced subject and I found his instruction so good that I did not have to bother with homework and assignments if I was happy with B grades
This comment made me roll my eyes. :) Giving students high grades for little effort is a cheat code for being considered a great teacher. Most everyone working in academia knows that.
Perhaps worth reading through the rest of the comment too? I had other teachers where it was easy to pass and get good grades (As even), but I did not call them out as good.
Before jumping to conclusions, maybe ask for context too? In particular, this was a high school for gifted math kids, and what I learned through regular classes let me pass math uni entrance exam in the top 10 (out of ~500 students) with no extra prep and even easily pass a couple of semesters of uni math with almost no prep (I took exams for two semesters after the first semester). My (lack of) working habits did catch up to me after that.
Also, for 4 years in two uni degrees, I did not get such a good teacher ever again, and there were a few who were easy to get great grades with.
Perhaps you can give some benefit of the doubt, though?
Well, I don't know you, your teacher, or even what subject we're discussing but you wrote that you did "not have to bother with homework and assignments". Perhaps you would have learned more if the instruction had not failed to make you study? :P
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this is not necessarily the case; the coursework could have been produced by a different person from the teacher (although generally at my alma mater the 'module organiser' fulfils both roles).
I’m not sure GP’s point landed. As I read it, it had nothing to do with who created the curriculum or even how much the student learned.
“Anyone who applies the smallest amount of effort gets a B and anyone who really tries gets an A” is a path to being seen as a great teacher in the eyes of the students, especially the students who got a B.
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