Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pacbell!att!ihlpb!nevin1
From: nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Student preparedness
Message-ID: <9249@ihlpb.ATT.COM>
Date: 22 Dec 88 02:51:37 GMT
References: <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <1988Dec16.153701.8316@cs.rochester.edu> <97@microsoft.UUCP> <502@mccc.UUCP> <9238@ihlpb.ATT.COM> <4992@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 41

In article <4992@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> dykimber@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Daniel Yaron Kimberg) writes:
>In article <9238@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes:
>>It is not even a necessary condition, let alone a sufficient condition,
>>to know the material in order to teach it.  If you look at professional
>>videotapes made for teaching, you will notice that most of the good
>>ones have actors, not professors, doing the teaching (you can usually
>>tell the difference on technical terms).

>It sounds to me like you've confused teaching with lecturing,

I think you are right.  Unfortunately, that experience comes from being
stuck with many professors who lecture, not teach.  And this is from a
"we are rated in the top five" university.

>Actors can't answer questions about the material,

Neither could many of my professors.

>[other stuff that good teachers/lecturers do deleted]

I agree with you that there is no substitute for a great teacher (or
a great lecturer, for the matter).  Unfortunately, most of my college
professors failed to meet these criterion.  Maybe I got more than my
fair share of bad teachers (I don't think so, though.  Many of my
friends around the country feel the same way); I don't know.  It got to
the point where I was picking electives based on who was teaching the
course and not based on the subject, because I got tired of wasting my
time (I tried to take my best professors more than once).  By senior
year undergrad, I kept wishing that they would publish the list of the
bottom 25% of the teachers than the top 25%, because I really wanted
to know who to AVOID.

If full-time grad school is anything like this, it isn't worth it.
There are much better ways to get a better education.  There are very
few schools that still want to teach people, and the intersection of
those schools and the "top ten" schools is very close to the empty
set.


Sorry for the rambling,
-- 
NEVIN ":-)" LIBER  AT&T Bell Laboratories  nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM  (312) 979-4751