Hi. My name is Landon. I am an engineer and much to the chagrin of the stereotype, I like to write. I was raised in Richmond, Virginia, but more in the suburbs in Glen Allen. I was home-schooled after 6th grade because I was stubborn and my family told me that I was too much of a "social butterfly" to be able to handle being alone in home-schooling. I tell you this as an explanation offering to ease your mind of trying to comprehend a "social" engineer, which is an oxymoron in general. People generally prefer knowing that I was home-schooled early so they can understand me as being the strange home schooled guy. I focused primarily on English and Philosophy during my formative years and reserved algebra and the sciences for college. Upon entering I began exploring engineering and found that I really only like it in as much as I can apply it to help people. But I also enjoy being the engineer who likes to write. Likes to think about the big picture, and likes people.
So with that taken care of, I have an assignment. This is to address the prompt, "Create an analogy for the 'Ideal student - teacher' relationship."
I'd say the ideal Teacher is one who knows everything and is willing to hear the most reduntant question or help the most utilitarian need.
The Ideal Student is one who carries no pride in her/him self and is disciplined and obedient.
The ideal student - teacher relationship is like a brother or a sister.
- Back to the fishtank,
Landon
Teacher knowing everything? Impossible when knowledge continues to be created at an ever increasing rate.
ReplyDeleteMy ideal is the teacher who craves learning and on hearing the question from the student, says "Let's go figure out the answer together..."
I agree with you. I think we are merely speaking of a difference in vocabulary. I think that it is information that is being created at an ever increasing rate. I think that our knowledge has not increased at the same rate as our information. Humanity on the whole seems to function much below its capacity to synthesize information and render it as knowledge. We rely on "the genius" to come in and transcribe this information to reality. Look, for example, at the history of mathematics. While mathematical progress does require time devoted to creative expression, your time can only be but so free. If you have nothing else to do in a day it does not matter if it is Archimedes in 250 BC, Newton in the 1700's or Euler in the 1800's. With all that we know now, we have not made as much progress with what we have been given as any one of these figures.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, I think that "knowing" should be seen from the big picture. If I wanted an answer without an explanation I would use a dictionary. If I want to understand I would need to find a person who knew where to find the answer. If you step back from the process it would appear to the student that the teacher "knew" the answer, when "knowing" to the teacher simply means "knowing where to look."
Thanks for clarifying this!