As I teacher, I learn more from my students than they do from me….NOT!!!

Bill Maher

“New Rule: Any teacher that says, ‘I learn as much from my students as they learn from me,’ is a sh***y teacher and must be fired.” – Bill Maher

I laughed pretty hard at this…and though it is supposed to be a comic line, I agreed with it. But of course, this drew the ire of many “teachers” (not all). On facebook I said this:

Yeah…..fortunately I teach in a university mathematics department and if someone complains about a bad grade, I can always show them their final exam and ask “do you want this person designing the bridge that you are driving over?”

Seriously, I think that the starry eyed mushbrains that mutter such claptrap should be operated on by surgeons who taught their medical school professors more than they learned and they should fly on planes that are piloted by pilots who taught more than they learned in pilot school.

Of course, I got responses such as this one:

think you need to try traching or being with young children to understand the idea conveyed. Like in UU Sunday school. -from a mushy-headed liberal who also likes math

That’s stupid.

I never said that teachers “don’t learn anything” when they teach; for example they (hopefully) become better teachers. At times, one can review a subject and go deeper when one prepares lessons; once in a while a good question might spark some thought or other research. Yes, I enjoy the interaction with students…though not with this type of student:

Some students: I can feel my brain cells dying when I interact with them! As for the “student” in this example: about the only thing I might learn from interaction with this student is that dumb, ignorant people often find their way into college. But I already know that!

But getting back to the saying: let’s get real. When I teach differential equations, the students start with near zero knowledge and leave with (hopefully) with some basic knowledge. I hope that they learned considerably more than I did!!!

Now about the little kids: well, think about it. When they are very small, they can’t do much more than suck and fill up their diapers. Now think about them 17-18 years later…..BIG change, right? Now what about the parents and those that taught them? Sure they learned stuff, perhaps a lot of stuff along the way. But I would hope that it was the kid that underwent the more radical change; i. e. learned more!

That gets me to another topic my responder identified herself as a mushbrained liberal. I agree with at least half of that assessment. To me, being liberal means doing things like questioning well established aphorisms, including those that are popular with the group that you hang out with. Also, words have meaning…”learn as much” means, well, “as much”. Now had the teacher said “I learn from almost every time I teach”, well, I’d agree with that.