Interesting. But it seems to me that the teacher is in a bind because of the assumption that it is necessary that all students learn the same things. If we really want everyone to have an interest in learning then we have to accommodate all the different abilities and interests that the students have. What the teaching profession has to be able to do is not to teach specific subjects but to enable the students to learn and somehow enthuse them to do it.
The problem is that then it is hard to measure the result. And in these days when quantifiability is regarded as the only necessary attribute of pretty much anything we end up falling back on measuring what we can rather than producing students who want to learn and are able to learn.
And when it comes to employment what most employers need is not someone with specific skills in mathematics or computer programming but someone who is willing to work, to improve, and to work with the rest of the department, someone who sees beyond narrow self interest.
> it seems to me that the teacher is in a bind because of the assumption that it is necessary that all students learn the same things.
That's not the starting point. The starting point is that there is one teacher and many students. The necessity for student to learn the same thing derives from the impossibility for the teacher of teaching more than one thing at the same time.
> we have to accommodate all the different abilities and interests that the students have
The craft of teaching is actually the opposite: it is to boil down the necessary priors for some specific learning to occur, and ruthlessly disregarding all other factors. If those priors are not in place you go back and teach them instead, recursively. It helps a lot obviously if students are grouped by current capabilities.
> What the teaching profession has to be able to do is not to teach specific subjects but to enable the students to learn and somehow enthuse them to do it.
Failure is demotivating; success is motivating. Motivation is baked into the pie.
> And in these days when quantifiability is regarded as the only necessary attribute of pretty much anything we end up falling back on measuring what we can rather than producing students who want to learn and are able to learn.
In the world of education, quantifiability is absolutely 100% not a priority. If it was, successful approaches to instruction would have propagated long ago, instead of the typical aspirational mush that passes for analysis these days.
> And when it comes to employment what most employers need is not someone with specific skills in mathematics or computer programming but someone who is willing to work, to improve, and to work with the rest of the department, someone who sees beyond narrow self interest.
They need both actually. Neither competence nor motivation alone will do the job. And frankly, it's somewhat going beyond your remit as an educator to decide what students should be motivated by. That's on them. The teacher's job is to teach.
The problem is that then it is hard to measure the result. And in these days when quantifiability is regarded as the only necessary attribute of pretty much anything we end up falling back on measuring what we can rather than producing students who want to learn and are able to learn.
And when it comes to employment what most employers need is not someone with specific skills in mathematics or computer programming but someone who is willing to work, to improve, and to work with the rest of the department, someone who sees beyond narrow self interest.