Re:Ask YC: (< (/ signal noise) too-low)
by mechanical_fish on Sunday March 30, 2008 @02:05PM
(#150287)
As one of the principal posters in that thread, I obviously agree with you.
Do folks not understand how teaching works? How coaching works? How leadership works? How a community works? This group isn't just a dusty library, filled with books that may be out of date and librarians who tell you to be quiet and RTFM.
People like having their questions answered by real humans. They crave contact. They crave personality. They need to know that someone is out there, listening. The voice of an actual human telling you what to do is often more real than your own voice, or the disembodied voice of an old book.
Yes, the questions are almost always the same. That's how teaching works: You're surrounded by novices, and once they stop being novices they leave and are replaced by another group of novices. The secret to being a good teacher is to take enough joy in helping others -- and, less charitably, in the sound of your own voice repeating itself -- to be able to do it again and again with only minor variations.
Do folks not understand how teaching works? How coaching works? How leadership works? How a community works? This group isn't just a dusty library, filled with books that may be out of date and librarians who tell you to be quiet and RTFM.
People like having their questions answered by real humans. They crave contact. They crave personality. They need to know that someone is out there, listening. The voice of an actual human telling you what to do is often more real than your own voice, or the disembodied voice of an old book.
Yes, the questions are almost always the same. That's how teaching works: You're surrounded by novices, and once they stop being novices they leave and are replaced by another group of novices. The secret to being a good teacher is to take enough joy in helping others -- and, less charitably, in the sound of your own voice repeating itself -- to be able to do it again and again with only minor variations.