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I was lucky to attend a liberal arts college with a large and extremely pedagogy focused mathematics department, and all of my math classes there were like this. Engaging lectures, if I listened and wrote down everything on the board I would be able to get a B on the exams, even if I skimped on practice. Made it all the way to measure theory this way. They included in class group practice integrated with the lectures, which definitely helped.

St. Olaf College for those wondering.

by yuanBuilds7 hours ago|

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I also went to a liberal arts college and, yes, my instructors care a lot about what I've learned. However, I am exactly that "asked educated question but sucked at homework and test" student. I usually got A or A- for first few assignments and just cannot finish any assignment near the end of the semester. The only exceptions are those "really hard and abstract" lessons where most of people got 70/100 for exams and I got 110/100 (literally).

I am 30 now and I realized that it was very much of ADHD symptoms. I am just an edge case of college education.

However, by genetics and mathematics we know that in every classroom, there are tons of “edge cases” from different perspectives.

by wnc31413 hours ago|

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I definitely struggled with feeling hyper engaged in the classroom setting, and then the jarring transition to the next class. By the time I switched between three and four subjects that day and on to do assignments, I was completely fried.

by SoftTalker2 hours ago|

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I'm having a hard time believing this. I've had one really good math teacher, his lecture prep was thorough, and the way he presented the material was very understandable, but without doing the problem sets, and some pre-exam review, I would not have been able to remember everything weeks later on an exam.

by CobaltFire1 hours ago|

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I can believe this. I had some subjects I was able to do this for going through Naval Nuclear Power school, and later college. Others I was unable to do this with.

Different people grasp things at different rates.

by SoftTalker38 minutes ago|

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Yes, I can see it with something you are naturally gifted in. But in that case the instruction probably has less impact; you'll get it even if it's poorly explained.

by wombatpm13 hours ago|

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Bette White has an honorary degree from there for her Rose Nieland character on Golden Girls

by wnc31413 hours ago|

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Loved my time at Olaf.

by JoeAltmaier8 hours ago|

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My son went there! Andrew the cello player.

by keithnz15 hours ago|

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schooling has to be designed around "average" teachers. Having someone who is gifted at teaching is great, but there wouldn't be many teachers if that was the standard. I often think when people idealize what schooling should be like it always seems like they are imagining teachers who are gifted.

by RealityVoid14 hours ago|

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Yes, as always, we like people to be good at their jobs instead of being bad at their jobs.

But, I think teaching skills, juuuust like any other skills can be taught and improved. So if we want good teachers and educators we need to build them up, not just relie on a few good ones to carry the day.

I personally reject the notion of competency in this as a matter of "giftedness", as something you either have or don't have. I think it's something you cam build. It's something you can teach. But you need to specifically aim for it.

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by Edman2745 hours ago|

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You do understand at least intuitively that it's not even mathematically possible - let alone practically - to train 100 percent of teachers to be in the top 10 percent of teachers, right? The definition of "good" and "gifted" is only used relative to an average. No amount of training can make the average teacher better than the average teacher; it's a logical impossibility, and misunderstands the central effect of training and the goal of the person being trained. No student nor teacher cares about be trained to some objective standard of competence. Rather, the goal is to be better than one's peers and you can't have all teachers be better than all teachers unless you reject the concept of teachers being comparable.

by bccdee4 hours ago|

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> it's not even mathematically possible to train 100 percent of teachers to be in the top 10 percent of teachers

…yes, but it's totally possible to (by, say, 2036) train 100% of teachers to perform at a 90th percentile as compared to teachers from 2026. That's how improvement works, which is what people are describing here.

> No student nor teacher cares about be trained to some objective standard of competence

What are you talking about? Students are extremely invested in whether their teachers have attained objective competence. If all teachers suck equally, that is very bad for me as a student. If I'm rich, my parents can probably hire me tutors or take me to a private school. If I'm naturally talented, I can teach myself. Otherwise, I'm totally screwed.

So, yes, objective competence matters. It's extremely silly to pretend otherwise.

by sokoloff3 hours ago|

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> it's totally possible to (by, say, 2036) train 100% of teachers to perform at a 90th percentile as compared to teachers from 2026. That's how improvement works, which is what people are describing here.

I doubt you can pull this off unless you’re willing (and able) to fire at least 25% of teachers who appear not willing (and under strong unions cannot be required) to outperform the current 90th percentile teacher.

There are great teachers; there are also entirely lazy/entitled teachers who will never willingly be at the performance of the current top 10%.

by bccdee1 hours ago|

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Oh yeah I mean theoretically possible, not practical, haha.

by Edman2742 hours ago|

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Okay, then by 2036 the curriculum and standards of teaching will have been updated too, the expectation of what teachers will be able to teach will have been updated too, the competence of students will have been updated, and the hidden expectation will still be that every teacher can do as well as the "gifted" teachers of 2036. You can predict that this is what will happen because this has been happening for the last century. Up until the last five years student test scores were improving, and if you believe that teacher performance is at all linked to student performance, then improving student test scores ought to draw from teachers getting better too, but that's not good enough. Why? Because the concern - after a baseline is established - is seeking exceptional performance, which definitionally cannot be made routine.

by slim46 minutes ago|

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who will train them ? average trainers. it's a chicken/egg problem

by basch8 hours ago|

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There’s a massive amount of duplicated effort in curriculum creation.

If the really gifted are documenting their lessons and publishing the framework other really good teachers can pickup where they left off.

Having those curriculums in a standard format would go a long way to making components interchangeable and remixable.

by necovek4 hours ago|

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Just like in learn-by-doing, I believe some of it has to be done by the teacher themselves — by feeling where the pain is, they'll better focus on what matters.

Obviously, this starts mattering with more advanced education — not sure I can offer good insight for early education though :)

by necovek15 hours ago|

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I think in this case, it was a teacher who is motivated, committed and focused on efficient, effective direct instruction followed by practice.

But I believe your point is great — we usually focus on average vs non-average student, and you are absolutely right that we need to focus on an average teacher just the same: what is the most effective way for a possibly non-motivated, less capable teacher to provide instruction with?

by red-iron-pine5 hours ago|

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the market also prices out these gifted teachers.

you either struggle to pay the bills and teach -- a thankless job, often -- or you take those gifts and double your pay working in industry.

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by bjourne9 hours ago|

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> I did, however, have a teacher who taught an advanced subject and I found his instruction so good that I did not have to bother with homework and assignments if I was happy with B grades

This comment made me roll my eyes. :) Giving students high grades for little effort is a cheat code for being considered a great teacher. Most everyone working in academia knows that.

by necovek4 hours ago|

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Perhaps worth reading through the rest of the comment too? I had other teachers where it was easy to pass and get good grades (As even), but I did not call them out as good.

Before jumping to conclusions, maybe ask for context too? In particular, this was a high school for gifted math kids, and what I learned through regular classes let me pass math uni entrance exam in the top 10 (out of ~500 students) with no extra prep and even easily pass a couple of semesters of uni math with almost no prep (I took exams for two semesters after the first semester). My (lack of) working habits did catch up to me after that.

Also, for 4 years in two uni degrees, I did not get such a good teacher ever again, and there were a few who were easy to get great grades with.

Perhaps you can give some benefit of the doubt, though?

by bjourne3 hours ago|

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Well, I don't know you, your teacher, or even what subject we're discussing but you wrote that you did "not have to bother with homework and assignments". Perhaps you would have learned more if the instruction had not failed to make you study? :P

by necovek1 hours ago|

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Whether they'd be able to make me study (it was a mathematical analysis course, though I do not think it matters) is a question that'd be hard to answer — I was already highly motivated with different topics: I was spending my time reading on CS topics like algorithm complexity, operating system development and building software interfacing with hardware. So another possible outcome would have been that I simply learned less of it due to lousy instruction — which was the case with a few other subjects.

Sometimes a teacher can also do a great job of getting you interested (also important) but I was focusing on quality instruction.

by SoftTalker2 hours ago|

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Or maybe OP is just naturally gifted at math.

by DroneBetter8 hours ago|

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this is not necessarily the case; the coursework could have been produced by a different person from the teacher (although generally at my alma mater the 'module organiser' fulfils both roles).

by sokoloff6 hours ago|

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I’m not sure GP’s point landed. As I read it, it had nothing to do with who created the curriculum or even how much the student learned.

“Anyone who applies the smallest amount of effort gets a B and anyone who really tries gets an A” is a path to being seen as a great teacher in the eyes of the students, especially the students who got a B.

by necovek4 hours ago|

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I am not disputing that being the case in general, but it'd be nicer if they gave me more benefit of the doubt: I tried to give an honest view of actually receiving good instruction, and not enjoying being handed good grades for nothing.

I've responded to them directly what that got me (like great uni entry exam scores with literally zero prep for a maths program, and a couple of semesters of exam passing with minimal prep for a maths/CS/physics majors).

On top of that, I am talking of this almost 30 years later — perhaps I have some perspective and I am not a fresh out of school guy who just loves getting off the hook easy?