4 ms·
From the article: > One time I heard someone praised as a good teacher. Not knowledgeable, but a good teacher. I objected that if someone is ignorant but a goo
by hrunt 3y ago
From the article:
> One time I heard someone praised as a good teacher. Not knowledgeable, but a good teacher. I objected that if someone is ignorant but a good teacher, does that mean they’re effective in conveying their ignorance? Wouldn’t that be a bad thing? No, all that mattered was that he was a good teacher.
I recently started volunteering with an organization that works to build CS programs in schools that don't have them[0]. The typical way that CS programs get started is a teacher of some other subject is given the CS curriculum and told to teach it. They typically don't know anything about CS, often have not taught a related subject (e.g. math), and yet they're expected to teach it effectively. Why? Because they are teachers. They are trained to teach, and the smart ones are smart /at that/. Note that for a new CS teacher, they typically use an existing curriculum developed by someone else (e.g. Code.org), so aside from the teacher's own internal biases, any ignorance comes from someone else.
I've always had respect for teachers as people who do something that try to build up other people, but seeing how a teacher goes from zero-to-teaching has opened my eyes to how and why great teachers are real multipliers.
[0] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/teals https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/teals
- gretch 3y agoto further retort the article author: You don't have to be that knowledgeable to teach the basics. If the curriculum is binary arithmetic, there's far more skill in trying to articulately convey the concept to someone who has done base10 all their life, than there is actually knowing how to do base2. There's a lot of people out there that are amazing at their jobs/domain - but they absolutely cannot explain it to a newbie. Teaching is a whole skill on it's own.