Nice. Thank goodness you’ll end up a teacher, because far too many of them see it as secondary to their research (or in lower levels, to reaching standardized milestones). Folks who truly love (and dream of) teaching are few and far between.
Author: alexpfp17
Comment on The Secret Sauce by alexpfp17
Nice post. I like the analogy. We need to develop our secret sauce, but also need to adjust the toppings a bit for each class, as every student’s taste is a bit different. The problem is developing this sauce is easier said than done. I wonder how much of a brilliant teacher’s brilliance is developed, and how much is raw talent. Did VT’s most famous prof, Dr. Boyer, train to be the teacher he is, or is it natural? At any rate, your post is evidence that you’re on the right track. And now I want pizza…
Comment on Let’s Meet Halfway by alexpfp17
Excellent points. It should work wonderfully for motivated students at top universities and graduate students. I wonder however, how it would work for undergraduates. You say “students are expected to be equally prepared and respectful”, but I have heard from friends teaching freshmen courses that many of the students are nothing close to it. It seems to be a recent phenomenon, because I do not remember disrespectful students when I was a freshman. Nevertheless, my friends claim they have even been yelled at by undergraduates upset by their grades. I’d love to know how to deal with these students, because the ones who are eager to learn are easy to teach.
Comment on The kind of teacher I do not want to be by alexpfp17
Excellent post. I love the cartoon too. I think you’ll be an excellent teacher simply by virtue of having considered what it means to be one. I’d say a sizable percentage have never even thought of it. Another percentage assumed what you described is normal and they should do it too. Yet another percentage consider research so much more important that teaching is just an afterthought. Sounds a bit pessimistic, but I’d guess that simply respecting and truly caring for the students would make you above average.
The worst thing I have seen in academia is the adversarial attitude that some profs get. I’ve never experienced it myself, but browsing academia related social media (such as reddit.com/r/professors) you can easily find examples. Some teachers see the students as the enemies. They assume the students are all lazy, and need to be taught a lesson. They assume the students are all potential cheaters, and are always looking for evidence of this. They are happy to fail students because it means the students “didn’t get away with it”. This attitude is so toxic it gives me hope for myself. Even if I do screw up, I’ll still be a better teacher than those folks…
Comment on The curse of exceptional peers and other weekly pessimism by alexpfp17
Thanks for reading. I agree. Whenever you run into the student with 8 first-author papers including one in Nature paper and you’re sitting on two low rent pubs, it is hard to take yourself seriously. Especially when you hear statistics about how each R1 TT job gets 300 applications and only a tiny fraction of PhDs ever get a job in academia at any level. Why even bother?
I heard one piece of advice that may counter this. I’ve gotten it from several people that I trust. They claim that when trying to finish a PhD, one quality is invaluable. It isn’t raw intelligence, or even hard work, but rather, persistence.
Comment on The curse of exceptional peers and other weekly pessimism by alexpfp17
No, but I have noticed it in my personal life. Competition between my lab-mates and myself certainly improves productivity, up to a point. Past that point, I have a tenancy to just give up and go back to my normal work flow. Which begs the question: Is it the responsibility of the advisor to optimize stress? I guess for productivity’s sake, yes, but I’d feel very odd if I knew my job description included “stress out your subordinates”…
Comment on The curse of exceptional peers and other weekly pessimism by alexpfp17
Man that’s terrible. Sorry to hear that. I was also a mediocre student as an undergrad. To this day, I wonder if I improved, or if grad-school grade inflation just makes it appear to be so.
Comment on The curse of exceptional peers and other weekly pessimism by alexpfp17
Agreed on all points. I ended up reading an NSF R01 grant a few days ago, and for once thinking “I could probably do most of this”. The same with an advisor who needs help sometimes – realizing that the older profs aren’t able to work magic is very empowering. As for the grades, I’d argue that is mostly the point of college, as far as the employer is concerned. They don’t expect you to be so well prepared that you can jump into the job. They just want the most persistent, most compliant, reasonably intelligent worker they can get. Grades are a great way of showing all of those qualities. The employer might miss the genius slacker, but to be honest, they’d probably rather have persistence and work ethic than genius. For this reason, I can’t imagine we ever really get rid of student “ranking”, even if they replace grades with something less tangible.
Comment on Weekly pessimism – Anti-Teaching by alexpfp17
You’re right that we’re all continuously learning. My concern was that the rebellious naysayers would have a paradoxical reaction. The more you try to engage them, the more they retreat. Maybe I was just doing a bad job of it. I look forward to the mindful learning techniques.
Comment on Weekly pessimism – Anti-Teaching by alexpfp17
My sentiment exactly. To be honest, I was hoping for “how” more than “why” when taking the FP certificate courses.
