[TheForge] Re: OT now teaching

[Andrew Vida]

Washington, Aubrey O. wrote:
> Once when I was an undergraduate, on the first day of a large
> lecture class I was taking, the professor began by holding up
 > the textbook and saying, "I have never taught this course before,
 > and I just found out last Thursday that I would be teaching it.
 > This is your textbook for the class.  I'm on page 250; you're on
 > page 1.  Read like hell and see if you can catch me."  As it turned
 > out, he was an excellent professor and I enjoyed the class.

	You never know what you'll get... unless you've had the professor 
before, in which case you might.

	I once got stuck teaching a class in probabilistic modeling for a 
graduate course in computer science.  I basically spent the entire 
semester staying 1 chapter ahead of the class.  The book was by a guy 
named Trivedi.  Good grief, had I not known better I would have sworn 
that the text was some sort of morbid joke just to see whether the 
reader would bite or call "bullshit" on its contents.  It was horrible. 
  The only class I ever taught that I did not really enjoy.

	And while I'm at it I will mention one of my all time vicious pet 
peeves: when someone regurgitates that tired, clapped-out old lie about 
those who cannot do, teach.  It is one of the few things a person can 
say that could move me to want to slap the taste out of their yappers. 
It is such a wickedly wrong thing.  Some of my teachers have been 
profoundly capable.