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For the most part I actually had wonderful teachers during my school career. What I bitterly disagreed with was a lot of the curriculum, and I knew they didn’t

For the most part I actually had wonderful teachers during my school career. What I bitterly disagreed with was a lot of the curriculum, and I knew they didn’t have a say in that. So my question to educators here would be: Do you ever feel like you’re forced to teach topics you know won’t benefit students?

germinalphrase 5y ago
I teach high school English, so I have a greater degree of freedom in my curriculum development (there is no textbook. I create everything). That is actually not my issue. My problems are mostly reality/logistical constraints. There is always more I could do, more I could give, more I could help every single student, but I would have to learn to freeze time or never sleep. It’s unhealthy and irrational, but I feel shame for not giving more when I know what a kid needs but I circumstantially lack the capacity to give it to them.
yodsanklai 5y ago
> Do you ever feel like you’re forced to teach topics you know won’t benefit students? Normally, professors teach things they have some expertise in, and they're biased to think that this is useful to students. Besides, it's often very debatable whether something is useful or not. For instance, I used to teach things such as theory of computation, automata theory, and similar so-called theoretical classes. You could debate ad nauseam whether this benefits students or not. Some would argue it's useless and students should do more javascript labs, other think that these are the foundations of our field, unlike the latest JS framework which will be obsolete in 2 years. Some of my colleagues go to great length to convince students that the class they teach is useful, but I'm not convinced this is necessary. I've noticed that students are happy as long as they think they learn something from the class, and that the class is neither too hard or too easy. They don't question the utility of the class if the teacher manages to make the topic fun. For instance, labs, exercices, exams, should be of gradual difficulty, so each student feels they can make progress. This is challenging to achieve when the class audience is heterogenous. So rather then the choice of topic, what had happened to me was that I disagreed with the way the topic was taught. In my university, sometimes we would work in team with little saying on the class syllabus, labs, exams... This can be frustrating and I'd just leave the team.
- kevinventullo 5y ago
  Ha! As a pure mathematician-turned-software engineer, Theory of Computation was one of the few classes I took that remains even remotely applicable. At the time I thought it was really cool, and probably made CS a little more appealing. Conversely, in my current role as a backend/systems/researchy person, a JS class would broaden my horizons a bit like a literature class might, but I think both would be equally useful to my current job.
  - yodsanklai 5y ago
    In what sense theory of computation is applicable to your current job?
    - kevinventullo 5y ago
      My current role involves analyzing and understanding customer-provided SQL. Although vanilla SQL is not Turing complete, in the past I’ve definitely decided to deprioritize thinking about certain approaches due to growing complexity and because they “smelled” like the Halting problem. Going farther back, I’ve seen a handful of instances where someone was looking for help trying to solve a graph problem, until it was pointed out that it could be reduced to an NP-complete problem. Unfortunately I can’t recall the details.
QuarterReptile 5y ago
I feel that I have requirements that don't benefit students much or at all, but I just don't spend much or any time on them. At the end of my courses, I administer a test graded by me, so I can just not fail anyone. I know on day 2 if someone needs to be failed, when they do their first practical exercise. I'll probably have them removed from the course so as to not waste everyone's time, if that happens (but it almost never does.) I also have a very specific curriculum that is meant to be followed, but it's mostly not very good or focuses on things that are no longer major focus areas, because the development process lags so far behind reality. Again, I just do whatever I want, especially for practical exercises. On the other hand, I teach another course that couldn't be more different. On the first day I give students every question to all the tests and tell them to start studying. If they can answer every question, they know plenty. I almost always give the same test, so different cohorts could (and, I'm quite confident, do) cheat by tracking which questions will be asked. I warn them against this, but ultimately I don't care because the final exam is not generated or graded by me, so it will be their predictable downfall if they go down the road of cheating. You could reasonably say I neglect the second course; I do, for good reasons that mostly have to do with what I said about the first set of courses. I also the systems that provide education and training to my students relating to both courses, which further justifies my allocation of attention.
dwater 5y ago
I was a high school math teacher for 9 years and taught classes with high stakes state administered tests at the end, and the content of the curriculum was the least of my complaints.

germinalphrase 5y ago

I teach high school English, so I have a greater degree of freedom in my curriculum development (there is no textbook. I create everything). That is actually not my issue. My problems are mostly reality/logistical constraints. There is always more I could do, more I could give, more I could help every single student, but I would have to learn to freeze time or never sleep. It’s unhealthy and irrational, but I feel shame for not giving more when I know what a kid needs but I circumstantially lack the capacity to give it to them.

yodsanklai 5y ago

> Do you ever feel like you’re forced to teach topics you know won’t benefit students? Normally, professors teach things they have some expertise in, and they're biased to think that this is useful to students. Besides, it's often very debatable whether something is useful or not. For instance, I used to teach things such as theory of computation, automata theory, and similar so-called theoretical classes. You could debate ad nauseam whether this benefits students or not. Some would argue it's useless and students should do more javascript labs, other think that these are the foundations of our field, unlike the latest JS framework which will be obsolete in 2 years. Some of my colleagues go to great length to convince students that the class they teach is useful, but I'm not convinced this is necessary. I've noticed that students are happy as long as they think they learn something from the class, and that the class is neither too hard or too easy. They don't question the utility of the class if the teacher manages to make the topic fun. For instance, labs, exercices, exams, should be of gradual difficulty, so each student feels they can make progress. This is challenging to achieve when the class audience is heterogenous. So rather then the choice of topic, what had happened to me was that I disagreed with the way the topic was taught. In my university, sometimes we would work in team with little saying on the class syllabus, labs, exams... This can be frustrating and I'd just leave the team.

kevinventullo 5y ago
Ha! As a pure mathematician-turned-software engineer, Theory of Computation was one of the few classes I took that remains even remotely applicable. At the time I thought it was really cool, and probably made CS a little more appealing. Conversely, in my current role as a backend/systems/researchy person, a JS class would broaden my horizons a bit like a literature class might, but I think both would be equally useful to my current job.
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  In what sense theory of computation is applicable to your current job?
  - kevinventullo 5y ago
    My current role involves analyzing and understanding customer-provided SQL. Although vanilla SQL is not Turing complete, in the past I’ve definitely decided to deprioritize thinking about certain approaches due to growing complexity and because they “smelled” like the Halting problem. Going farther back, I’ve seen a handful of instances where someone was looking for help trying to solve a graph problem, until it was pointed out that it could be reduced to an NP-complete problem. Unfortunately I can’t recall the details.

QuarterReptile 5y ago

I feel that I have requirements that don't benefit students much or at all, but I just don't spend much or any time on them. At the end of my courses, I administer a test graded by me, so I can just not fail anyone. I know on day 2 if someone needs to be failed, when they do their first practical exercise. I'll probably have them removed from the course so as to not waste everyone's time, if that happens (but it almost never does.) I also have a very specific curriculum that is meant to be followed, but it's mostly not very good or focuses on things that are no longer major focus areas, because the development process lags so far behind reality. Again, I just do whatever I want, especially for practical exercises. On the other hand, I teach another course that couldn't be more different. On the first day I give students every question to all the tests and tell them to start studying. If they can answer every question, they know plenty. I almost always give the same test, so different cohorts could (and, I'm quite confident, do) cheat by tracking which questions will be asked. I warn them against this, but ultimately I don't care because the final exam is not generated or graded by me, so it will be their predictable downfall if they go down the road of cheating. You could reasonably say I neglect the second course; I do, for good reasons that mostly have to do with what I said about the first set of courses. I also the systems that provide education and training to my students relating to both courses, which further justifies my allocation of attention.

dwater 5y ago

I was a high school math teacher for 9 years and taught classes with high stakes state administered tests at the end, and the content of the curriculum was the least of my complaints.