Re: gEDA-user: Teaching credentials (was geda cygwin package)

[Joerg <joergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Sokolov wrote:
> Joerg <joergsch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
>> But then lots of road blocks are thrown 
>> in front of them. Like having to first get teaching credentials and so 
>> on. Costs time you may not have, and money. I really don't understand 
>> why someone who explains electronic design to students and has decades 
>> of hands-on experience needs a "credential".
> 
> Well, it can be seen both ways.  I have learned the hard way that knowing
> the subject matter well yourself and teaching it to someone else are two
> very different things.  For example, after having maintained my own
> version of UNIX for 10 y, using this UNIX system for all daily work all
> this time, administering the system and making plenty of code changes
> both in the kernel and in various userland components without any outside
> help (my system is totally divergent from the direction in which the
> rest of the world has gone), I think I can say that I know UNIX pretty
> well.  However, my attempts to teach UNIX to my significant other and
> her son have not been very successful.  Even though they have already
> been required to give up Weendoze as a condition of receiving financial
> and emotional support from me, ...


Wow, that's almost news column worthy :-)


>                        ... so if they want to use any computing
> technology at all, it has to be UNIX or Linux, but that still doesn't
> give them the motivation to get up from the bed/couch and learn UNIX.
> Very frustrating.
> 
> And it isn't just UNIX either: when I tried to teach my S.O.'s son a
> little bit of high school physics, that didn't go too well either.
> 

Depending on his age he could be in a phase where the only thing that 
motivates him is something like "S..t, if I blow that final exam I'm 
going to be in a real pickle". No matter how good the teacher. Don't 
give up hope, he'll likely change. I did, but only after I got my F in 
Latin (we were forced to learn it and my motivation for Latin was below 
zero).


> I guess it depends a lot on the student's motivation.  If the student is
> highly motivated and has a burning desire to learn, that makes the
> teacher's job so much easier.  About 5 y ago a young hacker has contacted
> me over the 'net (he sought me out, not the other way around) wanting to
> learn more about 4.3BSD-Quasijarus (my divergent version of Ancient UNIX).
> He was and still is rather "green" in many ways, but he had and still
> has a burning desire to learn, and teaching him various technical things
> ranging from Ancient UNIX to hardware engineering has been a quite
> pleasant experience, totally different from that trying to teach UNIX to
> my S.O. and her son.
> 

See, you are a born teacher, else a smart kid like that would very 
quickly have hung up on you and moved on.


> I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's a push vs. pull issue: if
> someone is actively pulling you for information, it's quite easy to give
> it to them, but it's much much harder to feed the information in a "push"
> manner to someone who is passive at best or resistant at worst.
> 
> It would be absolutely wonderful if every student was internally-motivated
> and was actively pulling his/her teachers for information, but
> unfortunately I don't think that's the reality in any school system,
> even in the best ones like the old Soviet I grew up in.  Even if you
> don't have students who are outright lazy or stupid or categorically
> disinterested in learning, I don't think it is realistic for a teacher
> to expect every student to have a burning desire to learn his/her
> subject.  At best you can expect a moderate general interest in learning,
> but you still have to have the skill and talent of presenting the
> material in a way that keeps the students interested and motivated.
> A special talent which I sadly lack.
> 

It'll develop, as long as zero-effort students don't drain all the fun 
out of teaching for you.


> So in summary my view is that you don't need special teaching
> qualifications to teach the subject of your expertise to the exceptional
> super-motivated student who is actively pulling you for information, but
> you do need one to teach the average.
> 
>> My second chemistry teacher 
>> did not have any teaching credential, had a hard to understand Czech 
>> accent, and was one of the best teachers I ever had in my life. He was a 
>> lead engineer at a chemical plant that makes laundry detergents, on 
>> "emergency loan" to our school.
> 
> Well, since he was in a lead role at his main job, it is quite likely
> that his job involved mentoring others, perhaps ones with only moderate
> motivation, so that's how he had perfected his teaching skills.
> 

Exactly. At that point everyone will discover whether they have enough 
talent, stamina and fun to teach. Not through some credentials, CEUs and 
all that bureaucratic stuff.

I have to do this a lot, mostly in front of groups I've rarely seen 
before. The climate can be a bit "icy" at times before I even get there. 
"So here's this guy you retained and he wants to teach us to change the 
ways we always did our designs? Grumble, grumble ..."


> To me it doesn't matter whethor or not you have a teaching credential as
> in a piece of paper, but it does matter whether or not you have the
> ability to teach, which I maintain is separate from knowing the subject
> matter itself.
> 

Agree, but school administrations don't see it that way and because of 
this attitude they deprive themselves of some real talent. The are more 
folks than we might imagine who aren't in it for the money. For example, 
the chief engineer of a client quit his career (graciously giving more 
than two years notice ...) and is now a teacher in Los Angeles. I asked 
him how painful the drop in income was: "Very painful. But there comes a 
point where you have to give back to society." And this guy has to get 
four of his own kids through college, coaches a soccer team, his wife 
coaches another soccer team ...

-- 
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/



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