Education
I am often saddened when I think about the quality of teachers I've had in school. I remember in my sophomore year in high school, I took a class in Numerical Methods with Fortran Programming. The teacher had given us a mid term exam and the correct answer was marked wrong. I took 40 minutes to explain to her by algorithm analysis why the answer I chose was correct. We only had 50 minutes total to take the test, yet it took her over 40 minute to understand something that originally took me 2-3 minutes. She kept on saying my answer is wrong and that since this is the first time I took Fortran it is natural for me to make a mistake. It wasn't until 2-3 weeks later, that she admitted my answer was correct. However she refuse change my grade because it had already went out on the report card. And I went to a Vanguard Program for Gifted Students. So they had the creme of the crop teachers there.
In University Calculus II, I explained to the TA how the numbers on the problem did not require any calculation, other than basic multiplication you learned in elementary school, because she had messed up the numbers on the rate of change. I preceded to explain to her mathematically those numbers don't make sense but it never registered on her head. No one in the class said anything. They were all doing the quizzes apparently without sensing any problems. The TA said, "If this is a problem, how come no one else has said anything?" I answered, "Maybe because they don't know." She gave me a pissed off look and said, "Just do the best you can." At the next class she announced there were some problems on the quiz and it will be results will be discarded.
I had a few talented teachers but by far and large, most of them are a waste of time. One can just read the books and do without the teacher. Most authors that wrote the University textbooks were pretty smart but the professors that ended up teaching them were a waste of time.
Evidently getting a Ivy League private education at Harvard and Yale does not solve the problem of getting a quality education either. Look at George W. Bush, a graduate of Yale and the Harvard MBA program, as an example. It goes to show that it doesn't take brains to get a degree from those schools. A study showed that most graduates of Harvard were utter failures.
As a funny aside, when I took the Concealed Handgun Certification Class, the teacher had many correct answers on the test marked wrong. I had a Federal Agent taking the test along with me and he had his correct answers marked wrong as well. The teacher also said that George W. Bush was doing a terrific job and that the Iraq war was going well and we need to stay the course in order to win. It goes to show what teachers people get.
In University Calculus II, I explained to the TA how the numbers on the problem did not require any calculation, other than basic multiplication you learned in elementary school, because she had messed up the numbers on the rate of change. I preceded to explain to her mathematically those numbers don't make sense but it never registered on her head. No one in the class said anything. They were all doing the quizzes apparently without sensing any problems. The TA said, "If this is a problem, how come no one else has said anything?" I answered, "Maybe because they don't know." She gave me a pissed off look and said, "Just do the best you can." At the next class she announced there were some problems on the quiz and it will be results will be discarded.
I had a few talented teachers but by far and large, most of them are a waste of time. One can just read the books and do without the teacher. Most authors that wrote the University textbooks were pretty smart but the professors that ended up teaching them were a waste of time.
Evidently getting a Ivy League private education at Harvard and Yale does not solve the problem of getting a quality education either. Look at George W. Bush, a graduate of Yale and the Harvard MBA program, as an example. It goes to show that it doesn't take brains to get a degree from those schools. A study showed that most graduates of Harvard were utter failures.
As a funny aside, when I took the Concealed Handgun Certification Class, the teacher had many correct answers on the test marked wrong. I had a Federal Agent taking the test along with me and he had his correct answers marked wrong as well. The teacher also said that George W. Bush was doing a terrific job and that the Iraq war was going well and we need to stay the course in order to win. It goes to show what teachers people get.
posted by tarzan at 7:41 PM
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