This is a space for me to collect different ideas about teaching.
- Ahmed - good teacher
- Said - resource aggregator
- Dawe - passionate teacher
- Greenwood - good teacher
- Feynman
- Eddy Wu
- 3 blue 1 brown
- Sal Khan
Oftentimes, experts will provide you with the perfect intellectual next steps to progress in your craft. This being said, I believe that it’s not necessary to be an expert if you want to be a good teachers. Some the best teachers I’ve ever had have been my friends teaching content to me days after they learned it themselves. Realistically, teachers just need to be 1 or 2 levels above.
Anecdotally, teachers that are applying what they teach are very inspiring. I think there should be a new age of high school teachers + researchers. Could funnel resources to the school, generate massive impact, and pave a route in academia.
- I think I’ll have this as an option at my school. Pay teachers more if they are conducting projects in the field they are studying. I don’t think I ever read a story or essay from Park or Closson, but I saw Ahmed and Greenwood pore over physics questions all the time.
Analogies are OP
In today’s age, a teacher’s job is as much inspiration as it is knowledge transfer. The internet as so many great resources to gain knowledge, that really the most important part of teaching is making the student excited to learn. Take Said for example. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him write more code than a simple python turtle script, but without him, I feel quite confident that Saptarshi the computer prodigy wouldn’t have been made. He inspired (and also aggregated resources).
Crafting a good lesson:
- Start explaining what a student will be able to do by the end of the lesson. Embellish a little if you need. This part of a lesson is to grant student hope, and set up a reward system. I’ve seen students learn by giving themselves a treat after they finish reading a section, but these incentives are misaligned. Learning is the reward, it just has to be realized.