[ExI] annoying, unsolicited advice

[Michael LaTorra]

It does seem to be simple. But people who lack the knack for teaching
apparently find it very hard to grasp.

I taught undergraduates for many years. I told them that they could ask any
question, and should never feel embarassed. "There is no such thing as a
stupid student question in this class" I said. "There can be stupid answers
from the teacher, however. So only I get to be stupid."

Mike LaTorra

On Apr 11, 2017 3:45 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I had a friend, a Jew, a brilliant mathematician, an obsessive compulsive
> neurotic,  a collector of baseball trivia, among other things, one of which
> was teacher of undergraduate math - exactly where he should not have been.
>
> He was dating one of his students (again) and was tutoring her in math.
> As he reported to me, he told her that it was so simple that he was
> astonished that she didn't get it right away, and more along that line.
>
> So basically he was humiliating her, completely unintentionally, even
> after I repeatedly told him what he was doing, which was the same as what
> he did in his classes.  He was a super sensitive person and would have
> nearly killed himself if he had known just how badly he made his students
> feel.
>
> He obsessed over this very poor teacher evaluations.  He just didn't get
> it.  He was a failure at teaching.  He didn't have to be.
>
> One does not have to be called a teacher to be one.  I have been taught on
> this list several times and appreciated that no one talked down to me even
> though his level of understanding was apparently way above mine.
>
> Owners of businesses, managers of anything at any level, are all basically
> teachers and should realize the effect they have on their employees when
> they put them down over and over.  And they wonder why managers are among
> the most hated professions of all.
>
> It's really simple, isn't it?
>
> bill w
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20170411/6916ec08/attachment.html>