Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Learned Before Teaching Differential Equations [pdf]

Re:Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Learned Before Teaching Differen... by financltravsty on Monday November 13, 2023 @06:35AM (#38249127)

> Both fields embrace a sort of masochism and active desire to keep knowledge impenetrable b/c it acts as a mechanism to feed out the dummies. The system acts an an informal IQ test - that maintains the prestige of the departments. If you're pigheaded and clever enough to get through the masochistic torture is that their undergrad textbooks then you're probably pretty clever and so the prestige of the degrees is maintained.

In a twist of irony anyone could have predicted: this selects for the middle of the bell curve, and not the right-hand tail.

I feel as though there are a set of personality qualities that must not be present in order to achieve anything worthwhile. Wasting time, frivolous activities, and fostering an outsized ego are just a few.

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Re:Ten Lessons I Wish I Had Learned Before Teaching Differen... by marcosdumay on Monday November 13, 2023 @09:05AM (#38250221)

Yeah, the high-capability outliers are used to coast in any subject and may or may not have time to adapt to the laborious requirements before failing.

Also, anybody with "street-smarts" can see the cost-benefit ratio and perceive the benefit is kept much smaller than some other, easier subjects, while the cost is artificially inflated.

What it does select is people that really love the subject. And is at least a little bit smarter than average.

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