"It is important that he does not show that he does not know his subject"
It seems to me that this will do more harm than good,
because he does not know his subject. Since he does not
know his subject, he eventually will slip, and might get
caught in the act of lying. And if the students catch him
lying, how can they trust him? Like i said before, honesty
is the best policy.
"It is also important that he answers ALL of the questions asked by the kids"
While it is important to answer most of the
questions - it is more important to know when to
answer questions. Off topic questions and questions
that will stump him should be overruled - "Let's talk about
that after class." "I would love to answer that right now,
but we only have 10 minutes left and the test is this
Friday - besides, that won't be on the test anyway." He
needs to be careful to not get caught in a pattern of
wasting time entertaining each and every question/whim of
the students, or nothing will be taught.
While i don't necessarily agree with your first two suggestions, i heartily agree with the third. A good teacher knows that she/he is a student as well, and can
learn a thing or two from their students. Leave the ego
at the door, it only gets in the way - but this goes for
the students as well, cheap shots at the teacher to impress
fellow students may gain you a bit of respect from them,
but that respect lasts no more than the lifetime of the
course. It just ain't worth it.
(Kid
Gloves, anyone?)
I myself was a bit of a 'self-taught whiz kid' (and an
arrogant one at that) - my tool was an Apple ][+ back in
1986. These days however, whiz kids are much more abundant
(and much more arrogant) thanks to items such
as Windows and the Internet. I think that this teacher
needs to identify the whiz kids on the first day of class
and ask them to stick around after class - he should then
explain to them in a most respectful manner that he is a
newbie and needs their help. He needs to convince these
talented kids that they will get more out of the class by
supporting him instead of heckling him. Hopefully, there
won't be any whiz kids. ;)
And yes, sometimes teachers will be called out and
ridiculed if they expose that they do not know their stuff.
In high school it happens because kids hate authority, but
it is worse in college because the students are paying
money.
I have been a heckler myself - but it was me that lost in the long run, because even though a particular
teacher/professor might not have been as knowledgable in
the subject as i liked, i failed to 'make my own lemonade.'
Now ... teachers/professors that don't care are a
completely different matter - in high school, tough luck -
but in college, drop. Wait till a better professor teaches
if you can.
jeffa
Glad he is not in high school anymore. :)
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I see your point but maybe I should clarify on one point, the teacher should answer all questions but not necesarrily in the same class period and thus meaning that he should write down the questions asked to him and try to answer them as the asker might ask the question again and thus lower the reputation of the teacher. And yes he should talk to the whiz kids first but hopefully there shall be only one as whiz kids get more arrogant in front of other whiz kids (speaking from personal experience ;) . Also you should tell the teacher to pick up little tricks of the trade that might impress the whiz kids and thus bringing them onto his side.
Majin
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While I agree with you that HTML isn't a real programming
language, I disagree with your reason. Whether something is
a programming language (I'll leave out the 'real', unless
you can indicate what "unreal" programming languages are)
isn't related to how many people can lear it or not. HTML
isn't a programming language. It doesn't calculate or drive
anything, not in the most remote meaning of those words.
It only describes a document - it's a language, but not a
programming language.
As for the most remedial person can learn HTML, you'd be surprised
how few people actually know HTML. Even after 7 years, the
programmers at Netscape still cannot fully parse HTML.
Abigail | [reply] [Watch: Dir/Any] |
Virtually anything described in a marketing document.
Oh, there may be another language, vaguely similar, of the same name at some point. But it certainly won't be the silver bullet promised...
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