Re:If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t...
by JackFr on Thursday June 15, 2017 @06:06PM
(#14564846)
The best math professor I ever had, was in a 400-level Real Analysis class. His particular skill was that he basically had mastered the catalog of incorrect mental models students developed.
He would be proving something in class, someone would stop to ask a question, and from their question he would know not to try to answer it as asked, but rather he knew they were asking the wrong question, because the question was predicated on a misunderstanding of something three or four steps back.
Now these were proofs that a working mathematician could probably do in their sleep, but they were a level up in terms of abstraction for most of the students and to be able to drag us along with him was a rare talent.
He would be proving something in class, someone would stop to ask a question, and from their question he would know not to try to answer it as asked, but rather he knew they were asking the wrong question, because the question was predicated on a misunderstanding of something three or four steps back.
Now these were proofs that a working mathematician could probably do in their sleep, but they were a level up in terms of abstraction for most of the students and to be able to drag us along with him was a rare talent.