From: CS341A035@husky1.stmarys.ca ("Brynjolfr Myrkjartanarson, founder of the Compaignie Mercurie")
Subject: Teaching
Organization: The Internet
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 12:25:00 GMT

Eirik writes:
>   Arval wonders:
>
>> Tadhg, are you arguing that a teacher is obliged to try to impart the sum
>> total of her knowledge every time she teaches a class?  Or that she may not
>> so much as mention a topic without providing a full explanation?  
>
>      The teacher's obligation is contained in the word: to teach. To impart
>knowledge. I wonder how a comp sci major would like it if one of their
>teachers said "there's this nifty little binary tree search algorithm which
>neatly avoids the problems we've just been discussing, but I won't clue you in
>on it." Frustrating, no?

Speaking as a computing science student, this actually happens. For some
reason, most CS professors want to teach everything in order from the
simplest algorithm to the most complex. This results in some pretty weird
stuff being taught sometimes... (personally I get really revolted at some
of the stupid things that get taught in order to prepare the class for
what's coming next...)

>> class, or away from the event?  By accusing her of withholding knowledge,
>> you damn her on little evidence. 
>
>     As is the case anywhere, if you don't tell people something, they can't
>know it. The facts as they are currently known to not invalidate his
>hypothesis.

CAN'T know it?! Excuse me, but I know a whole pile of things nobody ever
told me...

>> She may have been trying to give her students a context for
>> the poetry, by showing them how a noblewoman of that time would have fit
>> into her culture.  That seems to me to be an admirable goal, and one
>> particularly suited to the SCA. 
>
>      Possibly so. However, as I have mentioned previously, there is really no
>such thing as a generic person. How ONE fits into a society is not how ALL do.

Yes. So she was demonstrating how her persona fit in with the society. (?)
If this isn't educational, I don't know what is...

>> 
>> Let me suggest another example: Suppose I were to teach a class on
>> mathematics, from the point of view of a 14th century scholar.  Is this
>> class flawed because I do not teach my students about mathematical theories
>> developed after the 14th century?
>
>      This does not seem to be the point. The point is more that to bring up
>something from your time, of which you have some passing knowledge, and then
>not follow it up is....irksome. I see nothing in all this indicating that the
>topic was beyond their temporal sphere.

So, must a teacher follow up everything that is even mentioned?

If followed to its literal extreme, this would result in a class full of
minutiae... each individual class wrapping itself in trivia. Which isn't
useful, and also very much isn't medieval... trivia being a modern
obsession.

>                            -Eirik

-Brynjolfr Myrkjartanarson, Compaignie Mercurie, Seashire, Ruantallan, East

      The unwise man thinks he will live for ever if he shuns fight, but
      Old age gives him no peace though spears may shun him. - The Havamal

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