Education in complexity, and the complexity of education
This post: http://scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=463
seems to me to contain a great deal of wisdom about good teaching. Prof. Aaronson is clearly the sort of teacher I'd love, and in fact I can name a bunch of teachers who followed his advice and helped me in all sorts of ways by doing so.
But I worry that his, and my, worldview may be too narrow. He is after all someone whose mind works much like mine. He teaches at MIT, where the students tend to be people whose minds work much the same as his and mine. Do his methods of encouraging curiosity work for others whose minds work differently? How would we know? How would we even try to find out?
On a lighter note, the fact that Aaronson is a complexity theory prof reminds me to tell (a shortened version of) a joke I came up with the other day which I humbly submit as possibly the Nerdiest Joke Ever:
The polynomial hierarchy walks into a bar.
He downs shot after shot, growing increasingly drunk and belligerent as he refuses to be cut off. Eventually this attracts the attention of other patrons, who whisper to each other:
"Jeez, ya think that guy is ever gonna stop?"
"I don't know. He sure has got a lot of problems."
seems to me to contain a great deal of wisdom about good teaching. Prof. Aaronson is clearly the sort of teacher I'd love, and in fact I can name a bunch of teachers who followed his advice and helped me in all sorts of ways by doing so.
But I worry that his, and my, worldview may be too narrow. He is after all someone whose mind works much like mine. He teaches at MIT, where the students tend to be people whose minds work much the same as his and mine. Do his methods of encouraging curiosity work for others whose minds work differently? How would we know? How would we even try to find out?
On a lighter note, the fact that Aaronson is a complexity theory prof reminds me to tell (a shortened version of) a joke I came up with the other day which I humbly submit as possibly the Nerdiest Joke Ever:
The polynomial hierarchy walks into a bar.
He downs shot after shot, growing increasingly drunk and belligerent as he refuses to be cut off. Eventually this attracts the attention of other patrons, who whisper to each other:
"Jeez, ya think that guy is ever gonna stop?"
"I don't know. He sure has got a lot of problems."