Path: utzoo!utgpu!utfyzx!harrison
From: harrison@utfyzx.uucp (David Harrison)
Date: Fri Mar 17 09:08:58 EST 1989
Message-ID: <1989Mar17.090858.18170@utfyzx.uucp>
Organization: Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Toronto
Newsgroups: ut.general
Subject: Re: PhDs vs. teaching
References: <1989Mar16.215619.27824@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: harrison@utfyzx.UUCP (David Harrison)
Organization: Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Toronto

In article <1989Mar16.215619.27824@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp 
(Henry Spencer) writes:

> ... teaching ability is more important
>than PhD-level technical background for teaching first-year courses

I don't know which is "more important", but at least in Physics I
think a PhD-level technical background is extremely important in
teaching first-year courses.  Typically, an undergraduate Physics
specialist learns the subject in a very compartmentalised way:
mechanics, E&M, statistical Physics, etc.  An integration of the
knowledge occurs at the graduate-student level for most (although
some able students achieve it as undergraduates); by "integration"
I mean realising that the thematic and mathematical content of the
different sub-fields is essentially similar.  Before that realisation
I think it unlikely that the person will be capable of effectively
teaching at the first-year level, although (s)he may be quite good
and second, third, or fourth year courses.

I *am* implying above that teaching at the first-year level is more
difficult than any other.

Also, Physics changes fairly rapidly and without a PhD-level background,
10 years down the road that person is going to find it quite difficult to 
understand those changes in a sufficiently deep manner to teach them
effectively to first-year students.

None of the above is meant to argue that a particularly able person
without a Ph-D cannot be a spectacular first-year pedagogue.  But
I believe that my PhD training has been extremely helpful in teaching
at the first-year level, and think that for most people, similarly
not particularly able, this would also be true.

Henry also wrote:
>Now that all my faculty friends are now ex-friends :-) 
A recent .signature from another person stated: "Those who do not
understand Henry Spencer are doomed to re-invent DOS", or words to
that effect.  Does that mean that U of T is now "Microsoft North"?
-- 
David Harrison                            | "Where it is a duty to worship
Dept. of Physics, Univ of Toronto         |  the sun it is pretty sure to
UUCP: uunet!attcan!utgpu!utfyzx!harrison  |  be a crime to examine the laws
BITNET: HARRISON@UTORPHYS                 |  of heat."  --- John Morley