I struggle with this as an instructor. There was a study that showed that students of low-rated instructors had better 10-year outcomes. Clearly that doesn't m

I struggle with this as an instructor. There was a study that showed that students of low-rated instructors had better 10-year outcomes. Clearly that doesn't mean you should be a crap instructor, but there's something to be said for a measure of student unhappiness. And it makes sense; students who had to work harder with minimal support built up better mental models along the way as they struggled through it. At the same time, sometimes being there to say a magic word or make an non-obvious connection is also really beneficial even if the student didn't have to work hard for it. Part of me also feels that CS (my subject) doesn't _need_ to be impossibly hard, that a good instructor tunes the material like a spinning instructor so that it's a challenging uphill climb when it should be, and easy when it should be. A student still has to work, but not so impossibly hard that they're destroyed. To get to the top of the mountain, the three options are hike straight up, take the switchbacks, or take the gondola. Straight up weeds out folks for sure. Only the best ones make it. The gondola, well, they learn nothing. I'm a fan of the guided switchbacks. I can make it steep when I want, and chill when I want. And hopefully tune that in a way that gets more people jobs at the end of the day. Difficult is important when it comes to learning. But there can be too much of a good thing.