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I call bullshit. Yes, learning takes effort even with the best teachers. Yes, it's good to be self-motivated and seek out more information on your own. But i

I call bullshit. Yes, learning takes effort even with the best teachers. Yes, it's good to be self-motivated and seek out more information on your own. But if this guy is right that an incompetent teacher is no barrier to learning, then why do we need teachers at all? My experience in grad school was that a course with a bad teacher took three to five times as much work as the same course with a good teacher. That's mostly because advanced texts in technical subjects are supposed to be exhaustive references. They're full of details and corner cases that make it impossible to get the big picture without reading them several times over. Showing you the big picture is the teacher's job. If they can't do that, they're basically forcing you to read and reread a thousand pages of reference material, looking for a synthesis that isn't there. Eventually all the repetition forces your brain into a kind of acceptance, but it's not the same as understanding and it isn't worth thousands of dollars a class.

Lewisham 16y ago
So... you were in grad school... but you couldn't learn independently? How is that the instructor's fault? That's sort of the point. The best grad classes are those where the professor just sets out a bunch of papers and says "read this one by next week" and nominates someone to find another paper worth reading, then talk about it next week. All independent, no lecturing. Having a terrible instructor you don't get along with is a bummer, and it makes the class boring, but it shouldn't affect your progress.
- mnemonicsloth 16y ago
  So... you were in grad school... but you couldn't learn independently? I said that a good instructor can speed up your learning by a factor of 3 to 5, compared to self-teaching (which is what you're reduced to when you have a bad instructor). How could I know that if I hadn't done both? It sounds like you're deliberately ignoring what I wrote so you can get in an ad hominem.
tkahn6 16y ago
why do we need teachers at all? Teachers are good for filling in gaps in your knowledge and/or clarifying a concept that you learned or attempted to learn from the text. All you really need is a good textbook and someone to talk to when you get stuck. If you can't learn on your own, how do you expect to perform any high-functioning job?
DrJosiah 16y ago
I'm sorry you didn't like my post, but I think you sort-of missed my point. It's not that an incompetent teacher is no barrier to learning (because learning is definitely enhanced by a good teacher), it's that students have choices in what and how they consume education. If you don't like the way you are being taught, then find a better source for what you want to learn. In particular, there are people who have taken your class before. The teacher is the primary person who has ostensibly taken that class before, but when that fails, there are students who have taken that class before. Find the few who got As, and ask for help. Or if the book is awful, ask around for a better book. Or hell, MIT's got their OpenCourseWare for more and more topics every year. As students (really, we all are), it has never been easier to learn.
- mnemonicsloth 16y ago
  > If you don't like the way you are being taught, then find a better source for what you want to learn... [T]here are students who have taken that class before. Why should other students do the teaching -- don't they have their own classes to worry about? Why would your students want to learn from other students, or from a website, instead of from an expert? And isn't teaching what they pay you to do?
  - DrJosiah 16y ago
    I'm not defending poor teachers, nor am I defending teaching poorly. Teachers should teach students well. But if a student isn't learning, they have choices. That's it. If a student has a problem asking peers for help (who may be better experts than their teachers), doing reading beyond their book (which may offer better or more recent information than available in the text), or finding a way to learn what they need to learn, then they aren't going to be able to function in the real world. Because in the real world, people don't teach you things, you must seek knowledge. I am not being paid to teach anymore, I went off to industry after grad school because I needed to make a living. When I taught, I was engaged every day, and was the best teacher I could be. That included 6 hours teaching every week, 3 hours of attending the course that I was teaching (I sat through the same course 7 times), with another 4-6 hours of office hours every week, in addition to any other courses, research, and contracting work that I was doing.

Lewisham 16y ago

So... you were in grad school... but you couldn't learn independently? How is that the instructor's fault? That's sort of the point. The best grad classes are those where the professor just sets out a bunch of papers and says "read this one by next week" and nominates someone to find another paper worth reading, then talk about it next week. All independent, no lecturing. Having a terrible instructor you don't get along with is a bummer, and it makes the class boring, but it shouldn't affect your progress.

mnemonicsloth 16y ago
So... you were in grad school... but you couldn't learn independently? I said that a good instructor can speed up your learning by a factor of 3 to 5, compared to self-teaching (which is what you're reduced to when you have a bad instructor). How could I know that if I hadn't done both? It sounds like you're deliberately ignoring what I wrote so you can get in an ad hominem.

tkahn6 16y ago

why do we need teachers at all? Teachers are good for filling in gaps in your knowledge and/or clarifying a concept that you learned or attempted to learn from the text. All you really need is a good textbook and someone to talk to when you get stuck. If you can't learn on your own, how do you expect to perform any high-functioning job?

DrJosiah 16y ago

I'm sorry you didn't like my post, but I think you sort-of missed my point. It's not that an incompetent teacher is no barrier to learning (because learning is definitely enhanced by a good teacher), it's that students have choices in what and how they consume education. If you don't like the way you are being taught, then find a better source for what you want to learn. In particular, there are people who have taken your class before. The teacher is the primary person who has ostensibly taken that class before, but when that fails, there are students who have taken that class before. Find the few who got As, and ask for help. Or if the book is awful, ask around for a better book. Or hell, MIT's got their OpenCourseWare for more and more topics every year. As students (really, we all are), it has never been easier to learn.

mnemonicsloth 16y ago
> If you don't like the way you are being taught, then find a better source for what you want to learn... [T]here are students who have taken that class before. Why should other students do the teaching -- don't they have their own classes to worry about? Why would your students want to learn from other students, or from a website, instead of from an expert? And isn't teaching what they pay you to do?
- DrJosiah 16y ago
  I'm not defending poor teachers, nor am I defending teaching poorly. Teachers should teach students well. But if a student isn't learning, they have choices. That's it. If a student has a problem asking peers for help (who may be better experts than their teachers), doing reading beyond their book (which may offer better or more recent information than available in the text), or finding a way to learn what they need to learn, then they aren't going to be able to function in the real world. Because in the real world, people don't teach you things, you must seek knowledge. I am not being paid to teach anymore, I went off to industry after grad school because I needed to make a living. When I taught, I was engaged every day, and was the best teacher I could be. That included 6 hours teaching every week, 3 hours of attending the course that I was teaching (I sat through the same course 7 times), with another 4-6 hours of office hours every week, in addition to any other courses, research, and contracting work that I was doing.