12 ms·

Students learn from people they love

388 points by kareemm 8y ago

agumonkey 8y ago
A lot of human existence is emotional transfer underneath. ps: to elaborate, we want to share things with other beings, when we bond over positive emotions, our mind get engaged, motivated, open, happy. As an example, my college math class was mostly the bottom of the barrel (me included). Our teacher though, was very invested both in the topic and in making us understand. Nobody cared at first, but with time, even the most uninterested of us ended coming on optional weekend classes. Why ? He cared. There are other similar stories about management. Dehumanized management creates more problems, a simple honest/respectful manager, even if harsh, will get 10x more results.
50 8y ago
Cue this ol' good read: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/01/what-classrooms-can-learn-from-magic/425100/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/01/what-c....
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Mildly interesting article, though sadly at no point it actually expands on the title. There's nothing about how or why "students learn from the people they love". Slightly related: students learn a lot because of having a crush on someone. I've learned a bunch of things this way too. It's not something that can be structurally exploited, though.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tw1010 8y ago
  I don't think it's written to be interesting I think it's written as propaganda, ehm, I mean to raise awareness.
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    Propaganda? I’m curious now, explain.
    - Profan 8y ago
      You see, treating other people with decency is a conspiracy put together by Big Life
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  >It's not something that can be structurally exploited, though. // If you're motivated to learn in order to impress a potential mate, rev that seems like something that might rely reduce - in part - to seeing sexual stimulation? That element might be exploitable, there may even be a way to do that morally?
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    rev -> then rely -> really seeing -> seeking Perhaps a small volume of typo corrections could be allowed as edits for longer than the normal edit period.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      > rev -> then I wonder how you made this one :). Mobile?
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Having a typo cheat sheet now: to some extent, maybe, though I didn't mean (just) the learning that's, in student's mind, explicitly motivated by desire to sleep with someone. I meant primarily the kind of implicit change that I've both observed and experienced to happen when one starts having romantic feelings - suddenly everything that's related to the other person gets much more interesting, including school subjects one believes the other person seems to like. As for exploiting this, or a bunch of other "nonstandard" sources of motivation, I worry in practice about what I personally call "educational games problem" - both teens and adults quickly notice when all you're doing is sprinkle some artificial "fun" on top of the same old drudgery. They're not tricked by it. It's the education part, not motivation part, that has to be secondary and sneaked in, for the whole thing to work. That's why you can get 12-yo to study undergrad-level physics as a side effect of Kerbal Space Program - they naturally learn to get better at the activity they find intrinsically rewarding.
bellerose 8y ago
Same can be said about people students hate. If a child hates his or her parents, the child will learn everything to be nothing like their parents. I think the article is a fluff piece. School was a complete waste of time for myself. The only benefit was for social connections. Everything useful I learned "career wise" was from online and where I found good C++ videos that got me into programming. I doubt much has changed and even expect it's becoming even more dominate where you have a better chance of succeeding if you're a self learner who can navigate online to whatever is needed to be learned.
- paulryanrogers 8y ago
  Was there nothing from school that was useful? Did you learn to read and write, how to work as a group, or anything indirectly related to your current career? EDIT: fixed typo
  - bellerose 8y ago
    I learned outside of school to read and write. Even how to work as a group from active social activities outside of school. Group activities in school didn't promote real strengths because the activities could have been done alone. Yet, I succeeded as a person who could work as a group by the strengths learned outside of school in social activities. I'm a software developer who was self taught online. All social skills with others at work were as stated developed from social experiences outside school. Forums or even reddit helped me progress in writing. I think school isn't necessary if motivated and the field of interest doesn't require legal obligations to meet by some degree or specialist program. The education system is arguably similar to any other capitalist entity and desiring society to feel it's needed or required. It's a real shame because it's a debt machine in a poor economy where the previous generation didn't need a degree and could get a home in their name young.
- docbrown 8y ago
  >School was a complete waste of time for myself. The only benefit was for social connections. With all respect, I’m calling bullshit on this. Social connections were thee only thing you learned? Where did you learn how to read so you could understand the C++ texts you were reading? Who gave you lessons to help with critical thinking so you could understand programming is not a linear process? Hell, who taught you how to count? If you had done none of this, you’d be claiming you self taught since an infant. Simply casting your entire education to the side is extreme. There may be parts of the system that you disagreed with, perhaps the structure of the school day, but saying it had no benefit makes it sound like a pendejo argument.
bayindirh 8y ago
It's actually very true for me. If I don't feel sincerity of the instructor, or they're cold & rude against the class; my grades for that particular class doesn't go up much. However, if the instructor is sincere, likes what he/she's doing, or I'm not being emotionally or wordly punished for my mistakes, my grades can easily compete with the top three. It's a response to perceived hostility / cooperation. I need to feel that we're on the same side. If I feel otherwise, I just study enough to pass the class, because my life is more important than a petty hostility in a class. The bad thing is, when I feel that cooperation, I study even less and get much higher grades, because I can listen and learn in class, since I don't spend any effort to protect myself from the instructor, and concentrate instead.
- bytematic 8y ago
  I always, and suggest it to other college students, to pick classes by professor. A shitty class can be made great by a great professor and vice versa. Can't take all ratemyprofessor stuff seriously but the rating has never been too far off for me. (just check the class the review is for!)
  - SL61 8y ago
    I check Rate My Professors for every registration. It's very reliable once you learn to read between the lines of some reviews. One professor is particular is really great, and I'd sign up for a class with him each semester even if the topic isn't interesting to me. He even suggested pursuing publication for a term paper I wrote, and helped me through the process. It takes a special kind of person to be able to do that, and it seems like those types of professors are the kind of people who are happy spending all day working on academic stuff. The previously mentioned professor goes home in the evenings and devours books and news to catch up with the latest developments in his field. Another professor sits in his office until 7-8 in the evening. They live in breathe their studies but I try not to fault those who want to have a life outside of academia too.
ttonkytonk 8y ago
...that emotion is not the opposite of reason; it’s essential to reason. I believe reason is informed by emotion to a degree that's difficult to appreciate until it has been tested. That's why it's so disturbing to see issues such as basic economic security largely ignored in what are generally "good times".
keerthiko 8y ago
The title is everything, and kind of blew my mind as soon as I read it. I had never for a moment considered this a reason why whenever I was asked as a kid "who is your favorite teacher" without hesitation my answer was always "my brother" and never any of my actual school teachers.
mettamage 8y ago
I can confirm the opposite is true. My most favorite subject was taught by a teacher I hated (psychology of game-design). I passed with a 75% mark and I felt ashamed since I was actively trying to get a 55% (i.e. barely passing). Edit: For downvoters, I'd like you to email me. I'd like to have the feedback why this isn't an interesting observation to make (that hating a teacher may produce opposite results).
- darkerside 8y ago
  Love and hate aren't opposites.
  - sethammons 8y ago
    Can you expand on that? I think they are almost always grouped as opposites. Sharp and dull, Light and dark, Big and small, Love and hate. You could try for apathy as the opposite of love or of hate, but that is like saying gray is the opposite of white or black - it is just something in the middle. I've tried to define love and hate in similar terms, minding what I think is their opposite nature. Self sacrifice to help another person is love, self sacrifice to hurt another person is hate. I think it works.
    - empath75 8y ago
      They’re feelings, not actions. You can love and hate something and someone at the same time (see Apple and Star Wars fandom), but it’s quite hard to love or hate something and feel apathetic about it at the same time.
      - sethammons 8y ago
        Is that different than the following?: big and small are just relative descriptions. Something can be both big and small, consider the moon (big to us, small to the sun), but it is hard to describe somethings size while not thinking/comparing/considering about it. Light and dark can be considered emotions to. You can harbor light and dark thoughts at the same time on the same subject. Light and dark are still opposites, like big and small. I don't find the argument compelling yet that love and hate are not opposites. If indifference is the opposite of love, it is also the opposite of hate. That would make love and hate the same or close. I don't buy it. I would consider negative and positive to be opposite, and zero to be niether. Zero is apathy/indifference.
Merem 8y ago
It really depends on the student. If one has great work ethics, the connection to the teacher doesn't really matter because one would learn regardless. Similarly, the student can also "just" respect the teacher in his position and for his knowledge and be animated to learn because of that. Also, since the article mentions it...fear can have a really positive effect when it comes to learning something. One year, we had a teacher who made us stand up in the beginning of the class and he would then ask for vocabulary. You had only little time to answer and if you got it correct, you were allowed to sit down. Obviously, no one wanted to be the last one standing, especially in a class of 31. It was the best class I've ever had and I learned a lot.
- bayindirh 8y ago
  It depends on student's self esteem IMHO. When you're new at a school, being subject to school wide bullying in a time where bullying is considered normal and just "children being children", addition of harsh teachers into one's already hard life, "great work ethics" doesn't help much. :) "Fear being a positive effect" is also dependent on the student's character. For me, being intimidation and motivation by fear has completely negative effect. I always respond with "Come on, is this what best you can do? Using fear, because you can't use a more complicated technique or you can't be sincere with us? We are equal here. You're teaching something, and I'm trying my best to learn it. You don't have permission to harass me with this." My comments in this thread are still valid for my work life. I still don't work with fear, and don't play along with people which are not sincere and show resistance to them. On the other hand, I'm the guy which others call me "extremely disciplined, and with great work ethics". If you want me to cooperate, just show me what you're aiming for. We can work together towards it, otherwise I'll indefinitely refuse to obey your "instructions" blindly. Pushing a person for its best is separated with a very thin line from harassing that people. If that line's not well observed, one may burn out a lot of people while trying to motivate. These burn marks heal very slowly and hard, especially in the early ages.
- MarsAscendant 8y ago
  > If one has great work ethics, the connection to the teacher doesn't really matter because one would learn regardless. That doesn't sound right to me, but I'm not to question it, since I realize how different people can be about such basic matters. What I'd like to bring here is: could it be that people differ in "types" of work along the same lines as they do politically? Not correlated, but semantically related. I wonder if there's a divide between the type of student who could dutifully learn something because it's the thing they're supposed to do, and the type of student who won't learn much if they aren't interested, but will quickly become proficient, if not master, the subject if they have the passion for it? The classic divide between dutiful order and creative chaos, in other words. > One year, we had a teacher who made us stand up in the beginning of the class and he would then ask for vocabulary. You had only little time to answer and if you got it correct, you were allowed to sit down. Isn't it related to the concept of "eustress" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress]? Fearful stress versus "challenge" stress. I keep hearing bits and pieces about it (particularly from Tim Ferriss), but don't have the large picture.
inglor 8y ago
I teach underpriviledged kids programming for the last 5 years and this rings very true to me. It's more important to teach them self efficacy and to believe in them than to teach them C++. I think this is also true more generally than just for students. I've given a keynote presentation about it at a conference this year if anyone finds that interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lckris5U5iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lckris5U5iw
- empath75 8y ago
  I wonder what percentage of what we measure as IQ is actually measuring an interest in figuring things out and a belief that we’re capable of it.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    I read something long ago which said something like 15 iq points were attributable to thinking you were smart vs not. I’m inclined to believe that most people are quite smart and capable and that it’s confidence, effort, and training that makes some produce more than others. The brain is vastly complex, and the subconscious processing power to perform text, speech and image processing is colossal.
    - wool_gather 8y ago
      Another factor I think is that we (culturally) have a bias towards certain domains being "smart" material or not. Mathy logic is just one of many things that your mind can analyze. I have a friend who's a metalworker. He'd never beat me in an algebra test, but he's damn smart when it comes to manipulating the physical world. He also happens to be very thoughtful and insightful about film and photography. But I'm not sure he considers himself "smart", even though he does original and careful analysis in the areas that he cares about. Another friend is -- as far as I'm concerned -- an absolute genius at understanding people psychologically, their decisions and motivations. I'll never be as smart in my own preferred areas as she is in this. But I don't think that most people would give her a "smart" badge for it.
ArtWomb 8y ago
Well established endocrinology of the brain. Hormones have demonstrable positive outcomes on memory, cognition, neuroplasticity. Despite recent trends for de-personalized and distance education. It will be exciting to see what light neuroscience can shed on learning. Tangential to this is what I consider an absolutely extraordinary phenomenon. The unexpected explosion of creativity that occurs in a subject subsumed in the throes of new romantic love ;)
jimmies 8y ago
I used to do IT support for a whole building when I was a undergrad student. One of the professors once had a quote stuck on her door: "People may forget what you say. They may forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." I was a drop-out college student who attended that small, cheap public university in the middle of nowhere as a last resort because I ran out of options in my country. Studying there was nothing short of life-changing. Long story short, 11 years later, I just earned my doctorate degree not so long ago and working my dream job. By the way, after graduating from the small state school, I got accepted in a much larger research university that gave me a free ride. But it was that little school that I had to work my ass 20 hours a week for 4 years that feel I owe my big gratitude for. That little school was the one that gave me hope that I could change my life and had professors and faculties that went out of their way to help a no-name international student. The other day, I was offered an internship in a very good place. The international student office told me I couldn't accept it because of the laws or whatever. There came a professor whom I barely talked to. She was then the head of the business school - one of the departments I did IT support for. She offered to go with me to that office to argue with the director of the international office on behalf of me. And she did. And she won. I didn't have to say a word. I think it was how you make them feel that makes them remember what you did, not the other way around.
- FiveSquared 8y ago
  That’s why you need to socialize, even as a rock star introverted dev. People come to your defense if you service them appropriately. Espically in college, as it is the best time to make good friends (earlier higher risk of leaving behind later work hold you back from meeting).
- calewis 8y ago
  Education is a beautiful thing. Great story thanks for sharing.
- ErikVandeWater 8y ago
  I really like your story. I'm glad you're successful now! Just to add one thing: > People may forget what you say. They may forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou is the source of this quote
kkylin 8y ago
Flip side of this: if there is a teacher / professor who's made a difference in your life, and you have the means & the opportunity to do so, drop by and say hi. As someone who's been teaching for a little while, it is truly gratifying to get a visit from a former student. It matters very little to me whether the student was a "good" student (i.e., got a good grade), or whether they've found what I taught them of any use. Just good to see how people have grown, and done different (and almost always interesting and productive) things with their lives.
- dependsontheq 8y ago
  He died pretty early... at his funeral it felt like every nerd who ever attended the school was in that church. I think about 200 former students came. Teachers matter.
- hycaria 8y ago
  I do this a fair lot, and it doesn't fail to make me cry and feel embarassed for myself.
paultopia 8y ago
Cue the extreme cynics suggesting that therefore we should only hire physically attractive teachers.
skybrian 8y ago
The article rings true, but it's also true that some people do sometimes learn things from books, videos, or practice on their own. Certainly this happens with computer programming. It seems that face-to-face isn't the only way to make a connection?
lambdasquirrel 8y ago
I wonder what the effect is in cultures where teachers are respected more. Not because those cultures are "better," but because learning more is usually better than learning less, and I'd like to know what my personal "defaults" are.
8bitsrule 8y ago
Very well done piece. I'd just add that students can also learn a lot from a person they don't love, if that person happens to be very good at something the student is internally motivated to learn more about. Someone driven to know more about something will somehow manage to overlook teacher's humanity. First principle: It's a lot easier to teach someone something once they understand why it's important to them.
thewarrior 8y ago
This is why I believe that MOOCS will not “disrupt” traditional education in any meaningful way. Learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon. Apart from a few genius auto didacts the vast majority of people learn in social settings. Even some of the geniuses were helped by social settings and peer groups that served as a constant source of ideas and feedback. For years I’d tried to learn algorithms to clear big 4 style interviews. But for reasons ranging from subject matter difficulty to motivation I’d fail again and again. When I got an interview call I had a competitive programmer teach me over chat every night one problem at a time explaining his thinking. I improved by leaps and bounds within weeks and also cleared the interview. What’s being imparted isn’t just mere knowledge but an enthusiasm for the subject. The fact that it can be a lot of fun to work on such problems even though they’re not of any “practical” use. The journey of the instructor and how they themselves learned to overcome difficult topics. The multiple ways they have learned to look at a topic which are too long for a textbook to cover. Customized feedback on how to improve, the right problems to work on, motivation when you’re losing interest. It’s very difficult to replace all of this. Now to be fair a lot of real life teachers fail this bar and MOOCS can probably replace them but both are incomplete in any case. This showed me once and for all that if you’re chasing true expertise then mere reading books or watching videos will never get you as far as people learning the subject from each other in a social setting with motivational instructors and incentives.
- apcragg 8y ago
  I've noticed the best "online" teachers excel in predicting what questions students will have and addressing them preemptively. I think the person behind 3Brown1Blue on YouTube does a fantastic job doing this. Throughout their explanations, they interject with things such as "Now, you might ask why I did it this way... well here is that reasoning" and then "but you also may have observed this and here's why you did". In some ways, I feel like the ability to anticipate student's questions and hangups and respond to them is a far better predictor of their efficacy as an instructor than how well they understand the material or the quality of the lecturing.
  - thewarrior 8y ago
crushcrashcrush 8y ago
This is why the future of education is in the hands of educators - it will be less about where you go to school (Harvard) and more about WHO your professor was for a given topic. Think Seth Godin’s altMBA
- anonymous5133 8y ago
  What about if the best teachers are basically AIs that are so good that you can't even tell it is an AI. Look up google duplex to see what I am talking about.
  - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
    Pretty sure the Google Duplex demo has been proven a fraud...
    - c22 8y ago
      What's your source? I searched for "google duplex fraud" and found a few results indicating that maybe the "businesses" called during the demo weren't real? I can't find anything that proves this assertion, but even if I could I'm not sure I'd label the whole demo fraudulent in terms of displaying the state of the technology. For a fraudulent demo I'd expect to see evidence that the system's responses were actually generated in real-time by a human controller, but I haven't found anything online that makes this claim.
matthewmcg 8y ago
This is all well and good but the headline is a bit awkward when you consider the author’s recent personal life: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/04/30/new-york-times-columnist-david-brooks-weds-his-former-researcher-anne-snyder/?utm_term=.2908af0e5f5d https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/...
jonmc12 8y ago
In the book, The Secret of our Success, Joseph Henrich offers a perspective of cultural inheritance from evolutionary biology. How do children determine who to pay attention to? who to learn from? 1. Skill / Competence ("whose arrows hit the target?") 2. Success ("who brings back the big prey?") 3. Prestige (cues of attention, deference) - use what other people are doing - they are worthy of paying attention to 4. Age (ie, scaffold to incrementally experience) 5. Self-similarity - what might be useful to you later? - males copy males, females copy females, etc https://youtu.be/jaoQh6BoH3c?t=1162 https://youtu.be/jaoQh6BoH3c?t=1162 (19:22)
shameemreza 8y ago
Yes, its because they feel comfortable with that person. As a teacher, I also saw that students love those teachers who are more friendly and easy to discuss about their problem.
hema_n 8y ago
It’s hard to work through difficulty if your emotions aren’t engaged.-This is actually true.
falcrist 8y ago
Interesting article, but it fails to address the idea that causal link could go the other way. So for example I might connect better with teachers who have some pedagogical skill/training, or teachers who put some effort into their lessons. I can confirm that I dislike teachers who can't be bothered to properly prepare their lecture. I also find it easier to make connections with teachers that do put effort in.

388 points by kareemm 8y ago

A lot of human existence is emotional transfer underneath. ps: to elaborate, we want to share things with other beings, when we bond over positive emotions, our mind get engaged, motivated, open, happy. As an example, my college math class was mostly the bottom of the barrel (me included). Our teacher though, was very invested both in the topic and in making us understand. Nobody cared at first, but with time, even the most uninterested of us ended coming on optional weekend classes. Why ? He cared. There are other similar stories about management. Dehumanized management creates more problems, a simple honest/respectful manager, even if harsh, will get 10x more results.

50 8y ago

Cue this ol' good read: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/01/what-classrooms-can-learn-from-magic/425100/ https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/01/what-c....

TeMPOraL 8y ago

Mildly interesting article, though sadly at no point it actually expands on the title. There's nothing about how or why "students learn from the people they love". Slightly related: students learn a lot because of having a crush on someone. I've learned a bunch of things this way too. It's not something that can be structurally exploited, though.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tw1010 8y ago
I don't think it's written to be interesting I think it's written as propaganda, ehm, I mean to raise awareness.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Propaganda? I’m curious now, explain.
  - Profan 8y ago
    You see, treating other people with decency is a conspiracy put together by Big Life
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
>It's not something that can be structurally exploited, though. // If you're motivated to learn in order to impress a potential mate, rev that seems like something that might rely reduce - in part - to seeing sexual stimulation? That element might be exploitable, there may even be a way to do that morally?
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  rev -> then rely -> really seeing -> seeking Perhaps a small volume of typo corrections could be allowed as edits for longer than the normal edit period.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > rev -> then I wonder how you made this one :). Mobile?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Having a typo cheat sheet now: to some extent, maybe, though I didn't mean (just) the learning that's, in student's mind, explicitly motivated by desire to sleep with someone. I meant primarily the kind of implicit change that I've both observed and experienced to happen when one starts having romantic feelings - suddenly everything that's related to the other person gets much more interesting, including school subjects one believes the other person seems to like. As for exploiting this, or a bunch of other "nonstandard" sources of motivation, I worry in practice about what I personally call "educational games problem" - both teens and adults quickly notice when all you're doing is sprinkle some artificial "fun" on top of the same old drudgery. They're not tricked by it. It's the education part, not motivation part, that has to be secondary and sneaked in, for the whole thing to work. That's why you can get 12-yo to study undergrad-level physics as a side effect of Kerbal Space Program - they naturally learn to get better at the activity they find intrinsically rewarding.

bellerose 8y ago

Same can be said about people students hate. If a child hates his or her parents, the child will learn everything to be nothing like their parents. I think the article is a fluff piece. School was a complete waste of time for myself. The only benefit was for social connections. Everything useful I learned "career wise" was from online and where I found good C++ videos that got me into programming. I doubt much has changed and even expect it's becoming even more dominate where you have a better chance of succeeding if you're a self learner who can navigate online to whatever is needed to be learned.

paulryanrogers 8y ago
Was there nothing from school that was useful? Did you learn to read and write, how to work as a group, or anything indirectly related to your current career? EDIT: fixed typo
- bellerose 8y ago
  I learned outside of school to read and write. Even how to work as a group from active social activities outside of school. Group activities in school didn't promote real strengths because the activities could have been done alone. Yet, I succeeded as a person who could work as a group by the strengths learned outside of school in social activities. I'm a software developer who was self taught online. All social skills with others at work were as stated developed from social experiences outside school. Forums or even reddit helped me progress in writing. I think school isn't necessary if motivated and the field of interest doesn't require legal obligations to meet by some degree or specialist program. The education system is arguably similar to any other capitalist entity and desiring society to feel it's needed or required. It's a real shame because it's a debt machine in a poor economy where the previous generation didn't need a degree and could get a home in their name young.
docbrown 8y ago
>School was a complete waste of time for myself. The only benefit was for social connections. With all respect, I’m calling bullshit on this. Social connections were thee only thing you learned? Where did you learn how to read so you could understand the C++ texts you were reading? Who gave you lessons to help with critical thinking so you could understand programming is not a linear process? Hell, who taught you how to count? If you had done none of this, you’d be claiming you self taught since an infant. Simply casting your entire education to the side is extreme. There may be parts of the system that you disagreed with, perhaps the structure of the school day, but saying it had no benefit makes it sound like a pendejo argument.

bayindirh 8y ago

It's actually very true for me. If I don't feel sincerity of the instructor, or they're cold & rude against the class; my grades for that particular class doesn't go up much. However, if the instructor is sincere, likes what he/she's doing, or I'm not being emotionally or wordly punished for my mistakes, my grades can easily compete with the top three. It's a response to perceived hostility / cooperation. I need to feel that we're on the same side. If I feel otherwise, I just study enough to pass the class, because my life is more important than a petty hostility in a class. The bad thing is, when I feel that cooperation, I study even less and get much higher grades, because I can listen and learn in class, since I don't spend any effort to protect myself from the instructor, and concentrate instead.

bytematic 8y ago
I always, and suggest it to other college students, to pick classes by professor. A shitty class can be made great by a great professor and vice versa. Can't take all ratemyprofessor stuff seriously but the rating has never been too far off for me. (just check the class the review is for!)
- SL61 8y ago
  I check Rate My Professors for every registration. It's very reliable once you learn to read between the lines of some reviews. One professor is particular is really great, and I'd sign up for a class with him each semester even if the topic isn't interesting to me. He even suggested pursuing publication for a term paper I wrote, and helped me through the process. It takes a special kind of person to be able to do that, and it seems like those types of professors are the kind of people who are happy spending all day working on academic stuff. The previously mentioned professor goes home in the evenings and devours books and news to catch up with the latest developments in his field. Another professor sits in his office until 7-8 in the evening. They live in breathe their studies but I try not to fault those who want to have a life outside of academia too.

ttonkytonk 8y ago

...that emotion is not the opposite of reason; it’s essential to reason. I believe reason is informed by emotion to a degree that's difficult to appreciate until it has been tested. That's why it's so disturbing to see issues such as basic economic security largely ignored in what are generally "good times".

keerthiko 8y ago

The title is everything, and kind of blew my mind as soon as I read it. I had never for a moment considered this a reason why whenever I was asked as a kid "who is your favorite teacher" without hesitation my answer was always "my brother" and never any of my actual school teachers.

mettamage 8y ago

I can confirm the opposite is true. My most favorite subject was taught by a teacher I hated (psychology of game-design). I passed with a 75% mark and I felt ashamed since I was actively trying to get a 55% (i.e. barely passing). Edit: For downvoters, I'd like you to email me. I'd like to have the feedback why this isn't an interesting observation to make (that hating a teacher may produce opposite results).

darkerside 8y ago
Love and hate aren't opposites.
- sethammons 8y ago
  Can you expand on that? I think they are almost always grouped as opposites. Sharp and dull, Light and dark, Big and small, Love and hate. You could try for apathy as the opposite of love or of hate, but that is like saying gray is the opposite of white or black - it is just something in the middle. I've tried to define love and hate in similar terms, minding what I think is their opposite nature. Self sacrifice to help another person is love, self sacrifice to hurt another person is hate. I think it works.
  - empath75 8y ago
    They’re feelings, not actions. You can love and hate something and someone at the same time (see Apple and Star Wars fandom), but it’s quite hard to love or hate something and feel apathetic about it at the same time.
    - sethammons 8y ago
      Is that different than the following?: big and small are just relative descriptions. Something can be both big and small, consider the moon (big to us, small to the sun), but it is hard to describe somethings size while not thinking/comparing/considering about it. Light and dark can be considered emotions to. You can harbor light and dark thoughts at the same time on the same subject. Light and dark are still opposites, like big and small. I don't find the argument compelling yet that love and hate are not opposites. If indifference is the opposite of love, it is also the opposite of hate. That would make love and hate the same or close. I don't buy it. I would consider negative and positive to be opposite, and zero to be niether. Zero is apathy/indifference.

Merem 8y ago

It really depends on the student. If one has great work ethics, the connection to the teacher doesn't really matter because one would learn regardless. Similarly, the student can also "just" respect the teacher in his position and for his knowledge and be animated to learn because of that. Also, since the article mentions it...fear can have a really positive effect when it comes to learning something. One year, we had a teacher who made us stand up in the beginning of the class and he would then ask for vocabulary. You had only little time to answer and if you got it correct, you were allowed to sit down. Obviously, no one wanted to be the last one standing, especially in a class of 31. It was the best class I've ever had and I learned a lot.

bayindirh 8y ago
It depends on student's self esteem IMHO. When you're new at a school, being subject to school wide bullying in a time where bullying is considered normal and just "children being children", addition of harsh teachers into one's already hard life, "great work ethics" doesn't help much. :) "Fear being a positive effect" is also dependent on the student's character. For me, being intimidation and motivation by fear has completely negative effect. I always respond with "Come on, is this what best you can do? Using fear, because you can't use a more complicated technique or you can't be sincere with us? We are equal here. You're teaching something, and I'm trying my best to learn it. You don't have permission to harass me with this." My comments in this thread are still valid for my work life. I still don't work with fear, and don't play along with people which are not sincere and show resistance to them. On the other hand, I'm the guy which others call me "extremely disciplined, and with great work ethics". If you want me to cooperate, just show me what you're aiming for. We can work together towards it, otherwise I'll indefinitely refuse to obey your "instructions" blindly. Pushing a person for its best is separated with a very thin line from harassing that people. If that line's not well observed, one may burn out a lot of people while trying to motivate. These burn marks heal very slowly and hard, especially in the early ages.
MarsAscendant 8y ago
> If one has great work ethics, the connection to the teacher doesn't really matter because one would learn regardless. That doesn't sound right to me, but I'm not to question it, since I realize how different people can be about such basic matters. What I'd like to bring here is: could it be that people differ in "types" of work along the same lines as they do politically? Not correlated, but semantically related. I wonder if there's a divide between the type of student who could dutifully learn something because it's the thing they're supposed to do, and the type of student who won't learn much if they aren't interested, but will quickly become proficient, if not master, the subject if they have the passion for it? The classic divide between dutiful order and creative chaos, in other words. > One year, we had a teacher who made us stand up in the beginning of the class and he would then ask for vocabulary. You had only little time to answer and if you got it correct, you were allowed to sit down. Isn't it related to the concept of "eustress" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eustress]? Fearful stress versus "challenge" stress. I keep hearing bits and pieces about it (particularly from Tim Ferriss), but don't have the large picture.

inglor 8y ago

I teach underpriviledged kids programming for the last 5 years and this rings very true to me. It's more important to teach them self efficacy and to believe in them than to teach them C++. I think this is also true more generally than just for students. I've given a keynote presentation about it at a conference this year if anyone finds that interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lckris5U5iw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lckris5U5iw

empath75 8y ago
I wonder what percentage of what we measure as IQ is actually measuring an interest in figuring things out and a belief that we’re capable of it.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  I read something long ago which said something like 15 iq points were attributable to thinking you were smart vs not. I’m inclined to believe that most people are quite smart and capable and that it’s confidence, effort, and training that makes some produce more than others. The brain is vastly complex, and the subconscious processing power to perform text, speech and image processing is colossal.
  - wool_gather 8y ago
    Another factor I think is that we (culturally) have a bias towards certain domains being "smart" material or not. Mathy logic is just one of many things that your mind can analyze. I have a friend who's a metalworker. He'd never beat me in an algebra test, but he's damn smart when it comes to manipulating the physical world. He also happens to be very thoughtful and insightful about film and photography. But I'm not sure he considers himself "smart", even though he does original and careful analysis in the areas that he cares about. Another friend is -- as far as I'm concerned -- an absolute genius at understanding people psychologically, their decisions and motivations. I'll never be as smart in my own preferred areas as she is in this. But I don't think that most people would give her a "smart" badge for it.

ArtWomb 8y ago

Well established endocrinology of the brain. Hormones have demonstrable positive outcomes on memory, cognition, neuroplasticity. Despite recent trends for de-personalized and distance education. It will be exciting to see what light neuroscience can shed on learning. Tangential to this is what I consider an absolutely extraordinary phenomenon. The unexpected explosion of creativity that occurs in a subject subsumed in the throes of new romantic love ;)

jimmies 8y ago

I used to do IT support for a whole building when I was a undergrad student. One of the professors once had a quote stuck on her door: "People may forget what you say. They may forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." I was a drop-out college student who attended that small, cheap public university in the middle of nowhere as a last resort because I ran out of options in my country. Studying there was nothing short of life-changing. Long story short, 11 years later, I just earned my doctorate degree not so long ago and working my dream job. By the way, after graduating from the small state school, I got accepted in a much larger research university that gave me a free ride. But it was that little school that I had to work my ass 20 hours a week for 4 years that feel I owe my big gratitude for. That little school was the one that gave me hope that I could change my life and had professors and faculties that went out of their way to help a no-name international student. The other day, I was offered an internship in a very good place. The international student office told me I couldn't accept it because of the laws or whatever. There came a professor whom I barely talked to. She was then the head of the business school - one of the departments I did IT support for. She offered to go with me to that office to argue with the director of the international office on behalf of me. And she did. And she won. I didn't have to say a word. I think it was how you make them feel that makes them remember what you did, not the other way around.

FiveSquared 8y ago
That’s why you need to socialize, even as a rock star introverted dev. People come to your defense if you service them appropriately. Espically in college, as it is the best time to make good friends (earlier higher risk of leaving behind later work hold you back from meeting).
calewis 8y ago
Education is a beautiful thing. Great story thanks for sharing.
ErikVandeWater 8y ago
I really like your story. I'm glad you're successful now! Just to add one thing: > People may forget what you say. They may forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou is the source of this quote

kkylin 8y ago

Flip side of this: if there is a teacher / professor who's made a difference in your life, and you have the means & the opportunity to do so, drop by and say hi. As someone who's been teaching for a little while, it is truly gratifying to get a visit from a former student. It matters very little to me whether the student was a "good" student (i.e., got a good grade), or whether they've found what I taught them of any use. Just good to see how people have grown, and done different (and almost always interesting and productive) things with their lives.

dependsontheq 8y ago
He died pretty early... at his funeral it felt like every nerd who ever attended the school was in that church. I think about 200 former students came. Teachers matter.
hycaria 8y ago
I do this a fair lot, and it doesn't fail to make me cry and feel embarassed for myself.

paultopia 8y ago

Cue the extreme cynics suggesting that therefore we should only hire physically attractive teachers.

skybrian 8y ago

The article rings true, but it's also true that some people do sometimes learn things from books, videos, or practice on their own. Certainly this happens with computer programming. It seems that face-to-face isn't the only way to make a connection?

lambdasquirrel 8y ago

I wonder what the effect is in cultures where teachers are respected more. Not because those cultures are "better," but because learning more is usually better than learning less, and I'd like to know what my personal "defaults" are.

8bitsrule 8y ago

Very well done piece. I'd just add that students can also learn a lot from a person they don't love, if that person happens to be very good at something the student is internally motivated to learn more about. Someone driven to know more about something will somehow manage to overlook teacher's humanity. First principle: It's a lot easier to teach someone something once they understand why it's important to them.

thewarrior 8y ago

This is why I believe that MOOCS will not “disrupt” traditional education in any meaningful way. Learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon. Apart from a few genius auto didacts the vast majority of people learn in social settings. Even some of the geniuses were helped by social settings and peer groups that served as a constant source of ideas and feedback. For years I’d tried to learn algorithms to clear big 4 style interviews. But for reasons ranging from subject matter difficulty to motivation I’d fail again and again. When I got an interview call I had a competitive programmer teach me over chat every night one problem at a time explaining his thinking. I improved by leaps and bounds within weeks and also cleared the interview. What’s being imparted isn’t just mere knowledge but an enthusiasm for the subject. The fact that it can be a lot of fun to work on such problems even though they’re not of any “practical” use. The journey of the instructor and how they themselves learned to overcome difficult topics. The multiple ways they have learned to look at a topic which are too long for a textbook to cover. Customized feedback on how to improve, the right problems to work on, motivation when you’re losing interest. It’s very difficult to replace all of this. Now to be fair a lot of real life teachers fail this bar and MOOCS can probably replace them but both are incomplete in any case. This showed me once and for all that if you’re chasing true expertise then mere reading books or watching videos will never get you as far as people learning the subject from each other in a social setting with motivational instructors and incentives.

apcragg 8y ago
I've noticed the best "online" teachers excel in predicting what questions students will have and addressing them preemptively. I think the person behind 3Brown1Blue on YouTube does a fantastic job doing this. Throughout their explanations, they interject with things such as "Now, you might ask why I did it this way... well here is that reasoning" and then "but you also may have observed this and here's why you did". In some ways, I feel like the ability to anticipate student's questions and hangups and respond to them is a far better predictor of their efficacy as an instructor than how well they understand the material or the quality of the lecturing.
- thewarrior 8y ago

crushcrashcrush 8y ago

This is why the future of education is in the hands of educators - it will be less about where you go to school (Harvard) and more about WHO your professor was for a given topic. Think Seth Godin’s altMBA

anonymous5133 8y ago
What about if the best teachers are basically AIs that are so good that you can't even tell it is an AI. Look up google duplex to see what I am talking about.
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Pretty sure the Google Duplex demo has been proven a fraud...
  - c22 8y ago
    What's your source? I searched for "google duplex fraud" and found a few results indicating that maybe the "businesses" called during the demo weren't real? I can't find anything that proves this assertion, but even if I could I'm not sure I'd label the whole demo fraudulent in terms of displaying the state of the technology. For a fraudulent demo I'd expect to see evidence that the system's responses were actually generated in real-time by a human controller, but I haven't found anything online that makes this claim.

matthewmcg 8y ago

This is all well and good but the headline is a bit awkward when you consider the author’s recent personal life: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/04/30/new-york-times-columnist-david-brooks-weds-his-former-researcher-anne-snyder/?utm_term=.2908af0e5f5d https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/...

jonmc12 8y ago

In the book, The Secret of our Success, Joseph Henrich offers a perspective of cultural inheritance from evolutionary biology. How do children determine who to pay attention to? who to learn from? 1. Skill / Competence ("whose arrows hit the target?") 2. Success ("who brings back the big prey?") 3. Prestige (cues of attention, deference) - use what other people are doing - they are worthy of paying attention to 4. Age (ie, scaffold to incrementally experience) 5. Self-similarity - what might be useful to you later? - males copy males, females copy females, etc https://youtu.be/jaoQh6BoH3c?t=1162 https://youtu.be/jaoQh6BoH3c?t=1162 (19:22)

shameemreza 8y ago

Yes, its because they feel comfortable with that person. As a teacher, I also saw that students love those teachers who are more friendly and easy to discuss about their problem.

hema_n 8y ago

It’s hard to work through difficulty if your emotions aren’t engaged.-This is actually true.

falcrist 8y ago

Interesting article, but it fails to address the idea that causal link could go the other way. So for example I might connect better with teachers who have some pedagogical skill/training, or teachers who put some effort into their lessons. I can confirm that I dislike teachers who can't be bothered to properly prepare their lecture. I also find it easier to make connections with teachers that do put effort in.