Use the chaotic inversion principle: instead of saying that something’s intrinsically difficult to communicate, say that most people suck at communicating it.
There’s a big difference between a teacher who says “the beginning and end of it all is practice” and a teacher who says “okay class, hold on to the edge of the pool and make this exact motion with your legs. cousin_it, turn your heel inward a little more.” If someone can’t be the latter kind of teacher, I’d rather they avoided teaching entirely.
If you don’t know how good you are at teaching, ask yourself this: do you empathize with the student? Do you understand exactly what problem the student is facing right now, and did you have to overcome the same problem yourself? Naturally skilled people mostly suck at teaching because they stubbornly believe that the student can “just do” something non-trivial.
Imagine you’re teaching someone to ride a bike, but for some mysterious reason they can’t even go two meters without losing balance and falling. Would you know how to debug the problem, or would you exhort them to “try again” and “keep your balance”, then leave disappointed after they fail 10 times in a row? The latter is what happens when naturally social people try to teach awkward people to be social.
instead of saying that something’s intrinsically difficult to communicate, say that most people suck at communicating it.
Why? It’s not what’s referenced in chaotic inversion—that’s “chaos might actually be ignorance.” Some things really do take more work to communicate than others, especially skillsets that will be different from person to person.
True, I probably should have been more specific, and it’s even worse than your examples because there is no “this exact motion,” and I am the swim teacher who says “see that bunch of people swimming over there? Try and do what they’re doing for an hour.”
I’ll add a list of practice items in order of scariness, but I suspect that RawPower also could have made a similar list, and the trouble is more devoting the effort to doing them.
Real-world practice ideas, in rough order of scariness:
If invited to something, go. Join a club. Join a club that will require you to interact with normal people. Play a drinking game. Friend on facebook someone you know who hosts a lot of events (can find out by asking). If in a room full of people, strike up three conversations within the next hour. Ask an acquaintance to go grab lunch with you. Talk with them. If you’re walking in the same direction as someone on the sidewalk, strike up a conversation.
By the end of a practice conversation you should find out their name, what they do, whether they are enjoying the conversation (do not actually ask—use detective skills), and what their favorite dinosaur is (or a similar detail). Optionally you could find out about their general social lives, recent entertainment they’ve attended, if they have any big plans for the future, and if they have heard of [thing you like]. Extra credit—make up new things to find out that you think people would find interesting if someone asked them.
Invite several acquaintances out for lunch or dinner. Most will say no. Some will say yes. Host a dinner party. Get out on the dancefloor and do what you see other people doing. Invite one to five acquaintances over to do an activity such as a videogame, a board game, or watching a movie. Flirt with someone attractive. Make eye contact, make jokes, touch a bit more than normal. Ask someone to dance. Dance. Ask to trade cell phone numbers with someone. Call them a day to a week later with an invitation. Ask an attractive person on a date. Take them to a restaurant, or to some sort of special event like a concert, or just cook a nice dinner and invite them over for a movie. Communicate it with your words or with your body language that you want to kiss someone right now. If they go along, kiss them. Communicate to someone that you want to have sex with them in the next ten minutes or so. If they go along, do it. Note: get expectations for sex and kissing from observing other people, helpful internet sites. Romantic movies and porn can be used, but only to extrapolate from, not to actually follow (especially with porn).
Apply the chaotic inversion principle again. It’s more likely that you don’t know the required exact motion, but still try to teach people using your vague understanding.
Why? Going back to proofs, it’s reasonable that there’s some optimal proof-finding algorithm given the set of proofs you want to solve (equivalent to knowing what social situations you will be in). But if you don’t know the problems, is there an efficient one-size fits all algorithm that isn’t basically “find the right algorithm in your situation and then execute it?” Does there have to be?
They do share intelligence and knowledge of the subject, and being able to break down your knowledge into parts is useful for a researcher too. I think requiring researchers to teach at least some undergraduate classes is a good idea, because it serves as a form of professional development, keeping them in touch with the basics and keeps them integrated in university life. Although there should be recourse if a researcher is a particularly bad teacher, normally they do quite well.
In my experience university teachers really don’t give a crap about the students understanding anything and think all the technical low-level calculaton grunt work is so beneath them it doesn’t deserve any attention. Ask any of them to derivate a freaking tangent and watch them sweat.
Huh, I have never run into such a person, though I’ve run into a few professors who were bad teachers. But in your experience it’s common: you say “In my experience university teachers really don’t give a crap about the students understanding anything”.
Is it really that common? Are you generalizing too much?
Maybe it’s a difference between different countries. Have you read Richard Feynman’s account of teaching in Brazil?
Well, in short, science education in Brazil was consistently terrible because it taught students to value memorization but not understanding. In long, you can read his account here.
Use the chaotic inversion principle: instead of saying that something’s intrinsically difficult to communicate, say that most people suck at communicating it.
There’s a big difference between a teacher who says “the beginning and end of it all is practice” and a teacher who says “okay class, hold on to the edge of the pool and make this exact motion with your legs. cousin_it, turn your heel inward a little more.” If someone can’t be the latter kind of teacher, I’d rather they avoided teaching entirely.
If you don’t know how good you are at teaching, ask yourself this: do you empathize with the student? Do you understand exactly what problem the student is facing right now, and did you have to overcome the same problem yourself? Naturally skilled people mostly suck at teaching because they stubbornly believe that the student can “just do” something non-trivial.
Imagine you’re teaching someone to ride a bike, but for some mysterious reason they can’t even go two meters without losing balance and falling. Would you know how to debug the problem, or would you exhort them to “try again” and “keep your balance”, then leave disappointed after they fail 10 times in a row? The latter is what happens when naturally social people try to teach awkward people to be social.
Why? It’s not what’s referenced in chaotic inversion—that’s “chaos might actually be ignorance.” Some things really do take more work to communicate than others, especially skillsets that will be different from person to person.
True, I probably should have been more specific, and it’s even worse than your examples because there is no “this exact motion,” and I am the swim teacher who says “see that bunch of people swimming over there? Try and do what they’re doing for an hour.”
I’ll add a list of practice items in order of scariness, but I suspect that RawPower also could have made a similar list, and the trouble is more devoting the effort to doing them.
Real-world practice ideas, in rough order of scariness:
If invited to something, go.
Join a club.
Join a club that will require you to interact with normal people.
Play a drinking game.
Friend on facebook someone you know who hosts a lot of events (can find out by asking).
If in a room full of people, strike up three conversations within the next hour.
Ask an acquaintance to go grab lunch with you. Talk with them.
If you’re walking in the same direction as someone on the sidewalk, strike up a conversation.
By the end of a practice conversation you should find out their name, what they do, whether they are enjoying the conversation (do not actually ask—use detective skills), and what their favorite dinosaur is (or a similar detail). Optionally you could find out about their general social lives, recent entertainment they’ve attended, if they have any big plans for the future, and if they have heard of [thing you like]. Extra credit—make up new things to find out that you think people would find interesting if someone asked them.
Invite several acquaintances out for lunch or dinner. Most will say no. Some will say yes.
Host a dinner party.
Get out on the dancefloor and do what you see other people doing.
Invite one to five acquaintances over to do an activity such as a videogame, a board game, or watching a movie.
Flirt with someone attractive. Make eye contact, make jokes, touch a bit more than normal.
Ask someone to dance. Dance.
Ask to trade cell phone numbers with someone. Call them a day to a week later with an invitation.
Ask an attractive person on a date. Take them to a restaurant, or to some sort of special event like a concert, or just cook a nice dinner and invite them over for a movie.
Communicate it with your words or with your body language that you want to kiss someone right now. If they go along, kiss them.
Communicate to someone that you want to have sex with them in the next ten minutes or so. If they go along, do it. Note: get expectations for sex and kissing from observing other people, helpful internet sites. Romantic movies and porn can be used, but only to extrapolate from, not to actually follow (especially with porn).
Apply the chaotic inversion principle again. It’s more likely that you don’t know the required exact motion, but still try to teach people using your vague understanding.
Why? Going back to proofs, it’s reasonable that there’s some optimal proof-finding algorithm given the set of proofs you want to solve (equivalent to knowing what social situations you will be in). But if you don’t know the problems, is there an efficient one-size fits all algorithm that isn’t basically “find the right algorithm in your situation and then execute it?” Does there have to be?
It’s not that binary—good teachers learn to be more perceptive. They don’t hit a point where they know everything they need to know about teaching.
I agree that the basic willingness to share knowledge rather than just say the usual thing is essential.
And this is why I think researchers shouldn’t be teachers and vice-versa: the skillset is completely different
They do share intelligence and knowledge of the subject, and being able to break down your knowledge into parts is useful for a researcher too. I think requiring researchers to teach at least some undergraduate classes is a good idea, because it serves as a form of professional development, keeping them in touch with the basics and keeps them integrated in university life. Although there should be recourse if a researcher is a particularly bad teacher, normally they do quite well.
In my experience university teachers really don’t give a crap about the students understanding anything and think all the technical low-level calculaton grunt work is so beneath them it doesn’t deserve any attention. Ask any of them to derivate a freaking tangent and watch them sweat.
What subject was taught by this professor who had trouble taking the derivative of a tangent?
Here is his page Guy is apparently a highlevel mather, but completely out of touch with peasant-level calculations, apparently.
Huh, I have never run into such a person, though I’ve run into a few professors who were bad teachers. But in your experience it’s common: you say “In my experience university teachers really don’t give a crap about the students understanding anything”.
Is it really that common? Are you generalizing too much?
Maybe it’s a difference between different countries. Have you read Richard Feynman’s account of teaching in Brazil?
Nope. Do tell.
Well, in short, science education in Brazil was consistently terrible because it taught students to value memorization but not understanding. In long, you can read his account here.
So… like Japan?