6 Jun
2013
6 Jun
'13
3:22 p.m.
On 6/6/13 2:19 PM, "Tony Duell" <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
A high-school advanced math teacher once threatened to hit me (no idle
threat, her face was contorted in anger) because I asked a math question,
about extending a concept into arbitrary dimensions. I kept my mouth shut
the rest of the semester, but the second semester's instructor actually
LOVED math and would do extra research to ask our oddball questions.
I should explain the makeup of the class: this was during the educational
'crisis' of the 1970s, which was really a money crisis and had nothing to
do with education itself. There were two math sequences, one for the kind
of math most people would need in life or liberal arts at university, the
other for those intending advanced study in math and the sciences. The
advanced sequence had been cancelled due to funding, but then revived just
before the school year began. The math faculty reincarnated the Advanced
Math student list from their shared knowledge of students' abilities. We
were literally a hand-picked group.
I was threatened with violence because I asked a math question. That was
1975. Fortunately, I think we mostly got over her.
-- Ian
On 6/6/13 8:47 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I susepct., alas, that's anotehr Bad Thing that we have imported fro mthe
States. Certainly I am told that this sort of thing goes on in schools
over here now.
I must ahve been a teacher's nightmare at school. No I didn't run around
screaming. No I didn't attack people. 'All' I did was to realise that
what I was being taught couldn't possibly be correct, or it contracted
something taught last week, or soemthing like that. I would then raise my
hand to ask a question and simply ask for an explanation. Often I didn't
know the real version and I wanted to learn. Only problem was that the
teacher didn't know it either. I once tied a poor physics teacher up in
knots (metaphorically) by asking something that (although I didn't
realise it at the ime) has _no_ clasiscla expaliation. I is a quatuum
trick (athough it doesn't seem to be one).
On the other hand, I never had a single maths or physicvs teacher that I
regarded as really clueful. I am not sure about other subjects, the
point about maths and physics was that in those subjects I'd read many
other books so I'd come acrsso extra things... My god, what today's teachers have to
endure...
Low pay, and deliberate abuse from students, knowing that if the teacher
tries to restore order they will whine to their parents who will get
them fired
(or transferred if they're in the union) because their precious little
snowflake would never lie.