Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!princeton!mccc!pjh
From: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Ph.D.'s and Teaching
Message-ID: <134@mccc.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 88 20:15:47 GMT
References: <2144@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU> <115@mccc.UUCP> <3469@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> <1759@rayssd.RAY.COM> <126@mccc.UUCP> <794@altura.srcsip.UUCP>
Reply-To: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg)
Organization: Mercer College, Trenton, NJ
Lines: 38

In article <794@altura.srcsip.UUCP> shankar@europa.UUCP (Subash Shankar) writes:
>
>Or, perhaps, they fear negative feedback from their professors, or even 
>other classmates.  I have had one too many class (undergraduate) in which
>the professor believes that all undergraduates are ignorami (or whatever
>the plural of ignoramus is), and any question they ask is by default a
>stupid question and a waste of class time.  These professors typically 
>look aghast at your stupidity, and then answer by reiterating their last
>10 prepared vu-graphs, except at a slower pace.
>
>Even worse, there is criticism from other students who happen to understand
>the material and consider the questioner to be wasting class time, even when
>the question is one clearly bothering a majority of the class.  Interestingly,
>the questioner often has the same feeling when somebody else asks a question
>about something he understands.
>
I guess we've all seen the instructor who cannot tolerate being asked a
question, as if a student's need to understand cast aspersions as to the
instructor's ability to explain.  Unfortunately, there's no answer to that
one.  Once an instructor has put a student down for asking a question,
that student will likely never ask another (unless he has very large
cojones!).  Of course, that instructor should be whipped (or beaten, if he
happens to like being whipped) and relegated to the research lab; he 
obviously is NOT a teacher.

As far as "superior" students -- those who happen to know the answer to a
particular question and act out that the question is wasting class time,
I have one suggestion for the questioner.  If it bothers you that Joe
Smartass doesn't like you question, ask the instructor outside of class.
Or, if your ego is intact, ignore Joe.

The only dumb question is the one that goes unasked.

-- 
Peter Holsberg                  UUCP: {rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Technology Division             CompuServe: 70240,334
Mercer College                  GEnie: PJHOLSBERG
Trenton, NJ 08690               Voice: 1-609-586-4800