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From: reuven@athena.mit.edu (Reuven M. Lerner)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Teaching Math etc.
Message-ID: <9788@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 13 Mar 89 05:31:36 GMT
References: <21529@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <10989@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: reuven@athena.mit.edu (Reuven M. Lerner)
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Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <10989@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> elm@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (ethan miller) writes:
>My personal experience has been that, for most freshman and sophomore
>level classes in the sciences, the professor doesn't get much out of
>teaching a class.  S/he is merely relating the basics of a subject,

I couldn't agree more.  I'm taking 18.02, MIT-speak for second-semester
calculcus, which introduces functions of several variables, vectors, and
matrices (and a lot of other things which we just haven't gotten to).  My
professor (Arthur Mattuck) teaches the material wonderfully, despite the
fact that it's so easy for him.  He even jokes about this in class, saying
such things as "I know this, and since I'm the lecturer, that's all that
matters."

>The solution, therefore, is to arrange a class so that the professor
>gets something out of it.

I think that's a wonderful idea.  I'm sure Professor Mattuck (and all of my
other professors, for that matter) would much prefer to teach math in an
open-ended way.  For heaven's sakes, there are thousands of applications for
what we're learning; can't we learn some of them in calc class?  I think
that part of the problem stems from certain professors' laziness, or resentment
of having to teach a class that's "beneath them."