Those Who Can Do - part 1
Something I wrote today brought to mind something I wrote a while back and I happened to find it in a dusty corner of my hard drive. So this is part 1 and what I wrote today will be part 2.
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Since most of my classes involve technology and learning software - a quickly moving target - I often have students show up who know more about the software, or at least certain parts of it, than I do. If I don't come clean about that and acknowledge it, I'm in big trouble fast. I find it surprising that the students don't seem to feel cheated when their prof knows less about something than they do. They seem to be energized when we're learning something together. Fortunately I usually have some trick or another up my sleeve that even the quick ones haven't come across yet, so they get some something for their money. Several times I've introduced a piece of software to a student who has never been aware that such a thing existed before. Something about it catches their fancy and they spend every spare minute, months worth of weekends, mastering every nook and crany of the program. They quickly outstrip my ability like a crotch rocket flying past a bicycle. It's a strange experience. I have one student in that mode right now. Try as I might, I don't see how I'll ever have the time he has to devote to one single thing like this.
The big "yes, but..." is that we faculty members have that priceless asset of "experience." But with today's tools, rank beginners can turn out work that puts my years of "experience" to shame. I know there is value there, but we can't count on it staying there. My current dabbling in production work on the side in no way keeps me as close to the cutting edge as long days and months of constant, full-time production did. By paddling out of the main stream to teach, I'm slowly becoming obsolete unless I keep learning new technology - which is as big a part of my job as the teaching. Probably bigger. We may soon get to a point where in order to get the degrees you need to be qualified to teach, it will be impossible to get the experience necessary to be a viable teacher. Sometimes I think we're there already.
There is a situation that comes to mind with flight training. The FAA requires pilots to learn, pass written tests, and demonstrate proficiency with navigation systems that are completely obsolete and will never be used again. I don't know if it's still there, but the air transport pilot test (for people who are going to fly jets for the airlines) had a question about the pressure in the tail strut of a DC-3. It's been commonly known in the flying community that to get an instrument rating (allowing one to fly in and above clouds) you have to learn a whole bunch of practically useless information. Then, once you get the license, you have to go out and learn to fly instruments the way it is actually done today.
The old saw, "those who can, do, those who can't, teach" may be getting truer. Some days I'm excited to be teaching. Other days it scares me.
__________________________________________
Since most of my classes involve technology and learning software - a quickly moving target - I often have students show up who know more about the software, or at least certain parts of it, than I do. If I don't come clean about that and acknowledge it, I'm in big trouble fast. I find it surprising that the students don't seem to feel cheated when their prof knows less about something than they do. They seem to be energized when we're learning something together. Fortunately I usually have some trick or another up my sleeve that even the quick ones haven't come across yet, so they get some something for their money. Several times I've introduced a piece of software to a student who has never been aware that such a thing existed before. Something about it catches their fancy and they spend every spare minute, months worth of weekends, mastering every nook and crany of the program. They quickly outstrip my ability like a crotch rocket flying past a bicycle. It's a strange experience. I have one student in that mode right now. Try as I might, I don't see how I'll ever have the time he has to devote to one single thing like this.
The big "yes, but..." is that we faculty members have that priceless asset of "experience." But with today's tools, rank beginners can turn out work that puts my years of "experience" to shame. I know there is value there, but we can't count on it staying there. My current dabbling in production work on the side in no way keeps me as close to the cutting edge as long days and months of constant, full-time production did. By paddling out of the main stream to teach, I'm slowly becoming obsolete unless I keep learning new technology - which is as big a part of my job as the teaching. Probably bigger. We may soon get to a point where in order to get the degrees you need to be qualified to teach, it will be impossible to get the experience necessary to be a viable teacher. Sometimes I think we're there already.
There is a situation that comes to mind with flight training. The FAA requires pilots to learn, pass written tests, and demonstrate proficiency with navigation systems that are completely obsolete and will never be used again. I don't know if it's still there, but the air transport pilot test (for people who are going to fly jets for the airlines) had a question about the pressure in the tail strut of a DC-3. It's been commonly known in the flying community that to get an instrument rating (allowing one to fly in and above clouds) you have to learn a whole bunch of practically useless information. Then, once you get the license, you have to go out and learn to fly instruments the way it is actually done today.
The old saw, "those who can, do, those who can't, teach" may be getting truer. Some days I'm excited to be teaching. Other days it scares me.
posted by wingman at 11:34 PM
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