I just had sucky teachers. Most classes consisted of walking in, and the teacher making us copy some overheads, then do work in the textbook, then homework. The teacher didn’t really engage or teach us anything, just sat there on his phone
Honestly which teacher you have genuinely has an impact on what fields you have an interest in. Going into grade 11 I had neither an interest in English nor Biology. But my bio teacher was genuinely amazing and did everything she could to help us with the subject, including explain hard to understand topics over and over again in different ways to help get through to us.
Meanwhile my grade 11 English teacher was was very much the old timey type of teacher, the kind where you just know the only reason no one in class is getting flogged is because that’s illegal in the 21st century. Super strict and super patronizing when you don’t understand the material instead of actually helping you understand it. It got to the point where our class (along with her other classes in the same grade) literally started an online group so we could help each other through her bullshit, silver lining being that her class was a bonding experience for us. Combined with the fact that I was already struggling a bit because English is not my first language (I was still fluent and was in the normal English classes in Canada) basically made me despise English and literature in general. I learned more about fiction writing from writing and roleplay forums than I did in that class.
I ended up almost failing English while acing high school bio which led to me majoring in ecology in uni (though to be fair I was already very much inclined more toward science than any other field). Luckily my first year uni English prof was great and that class helped restore my interest in literature enough to start writing fiction on my own. All my hobby writing projects were from University onwards.
I mean, teachers vary significantly in quality and approach. Straight book readers are rare, but especially at lower levels maybe most of them don’t care about anything besides checking off whatever curriculum is handed down.
We must. I mostly know elementary school teachers at this point, although looking back I see evidence of it all the way through my own K-12 experience. While it’s kind of sad in some ways, I think it’s pretty much necessary.
That’s actually not how I learn at all, or at least prefer not too but I’m more than capable of doing x on my own to produce y. Research is a skill that isn’t taught to anyone and they need hand curated material. It’s no wonder we have to cater to the lowest
…if that’s the case, why do professors exist in this day and age with so many books? Why don’t we have a scholar system in reality if books should be enough for people to learn?
Like, if you’ve ever had a good teacher before, they’re not JUST regurgitating info, they’re connecting it to the wider context that currently surrounds you, aka your daily lived life (at least in a lot of cases, I’m sure there are many flavors of what makes a teacher better than an info regurgitator, but this is a solid one that I personally know of)
Teachers, while they may suck or not have the ability to be good for whatever reason, are not supposed to be just information spewing robots.
That just tells us that you had bad teachers. Sorry about that.
Good teachers will deliver knowledge in an interesting way. Take any good edutainment YouTube channel: Vsauce, CGP Grey, or Kurzgesagt for example. More specific ones are arguably better, like Captain Disillusion for VFX or 3Blue1Brown for Math(s).
Good teachers will make you excited about learning something. Yes, they regurgitate info, but they should be doing so in an engaging way.
And I haven’t even mentioned the value you can get from simply asking a question. That’s where I think the true value of a teacher lies. We can all read books or watch YouTube videos, but if we’re not quite there then a simple question answered can often be enough to help us grasp a concept.
I just had sucky teachers. Most classes consisted of walking in, and the teacher making us copy some overheads, then do work in the textbook, then homework. The teacher didn’t really engage or teach us anything, just sat there on his phone
Honestly which teacher you have genuinely has an impact on what fields you have an interest in. Going into grade 11 I had neither an interest in English nor Biology. But my bio teacher was genuinely amazing and did everything she could to help us with the subject, including explain hard to understand topics over and over again in different ways to help get through to us.
Meanwhile my grade 11 English teacher was was very much the old timey type of teacher, the kind where you just know the only reason no one in class is getting flogged is because that’s illegal in the 21st century. Super strict and super patronizing when you don’t understand the material instead of actually helping you understand it. It got to the point where our class (along with her other classes in the same grade) literally started an online group so we could help each other through her bullshit, silver lining being that her class was a bonding experience for us. Combined with the fact that I was already struggling a bit because English is not my first language (I was still fluent and was in the normal English classes in Canada) basically made me despise English and literature in general. I learned more about fiction writing from writing and roleplay forums than I did in that class.
I ended up almost failing English while acing high school bio which led to me majoring in ecology in uni (though to be fair I was already very much inclined more toward science than any other field). Luckily my first year uni English prof was great and that class helped restore my interest in literature enough to start writing fiction on my own. All my hobby writing projects were from University onwards.
This is the reality of using standardized testing to evaluate school efficacy and funding—teach the test content, don’t teach how to learn.
In all reality the books should be enough for people to learn. Teachers don’t actually ‘teach’. They all just regurgitate info.
That might be how you learn, but it certainly isn’t how everyone learns. Also, that’s just a shitty take on teachers.
I mean, teachers vary significantly in quality and approach. Straight book readers are rare, but especially at lower levels maybe most of them don’t care about anything besides checking off whatever curriculum is handed down.
Hm, we must know very different circles of teachers.
We must. I mostly know elementary school teachers at this point, although looking back I see evidence of it all the way through my own K-12 experience. While it’s kind of sad in some ways, I think it’s pretty much necessary.
Professors are of course a different beast.
That’s actually not how I learn at all, or at least prefer not too but I’m more than capable of doing x on my own to produce y. Research is a skill that isn’t taught to anyone and they need hand curated material. It’s no wonder we have to cater to the lowest
…if that’s the case, why do professors exist in this day and age with so many books? Why don’t we have a scholar system in reality if books should be enough for people to learn?
Like, if you’ve ever had a good teacher before, they’re not JUST regurgitating info, they’re connecting it to the wider context that currently surrounds you, aka your daily lived life (at least in a lot of cases, I’m sure there are many flavors of what makes a teacher better than an info regurgitator, but this is a solid one that I personally know of)
Teachers, while they may suck or not have the ability to be good for whatever reason, are not supposed to be just information spewing robots.
That just tells us that you had bad teachers. Sorry about that.
Good teachers will deliver knowledge in an interesting way. Take any good edutainment YouTube channel: Vsauce, CGP Grey, or Kurzgesagt for example. More specific ones are arguably better, like Captain Disillusion for VFX or 3Blue1Brown for Math(s).
Good teachers will make you excited about learning something. Yes, they regurgitate info, but they should be doing so in an engaging way.
And I haven’t even mentioned the value you can get from simply asking a question. That’s where I think the true value of a teacher lies. We can all read books or watch YouTube videos, but if we’re not quite there then a simple question answered can often be enough to help us grasp a concept.
I’m surprised you can even read.
Maybe theoretically, but for whatever reason that doesn’t work for a lot of people.