>>11955804My point is that even the teaching just sucks ass.
There is now almost nothing redeemable about academia, and it’s clearly a negative for trying to help people form accurate worldviews at this point (and has been for a long time).
I currently tutor mathematics and I have turned people from hating mathematics to loving it and wanting me to stay past the lessons because they want to learn more math. Sending me math they’re interested in.
If I can do that, I think people who are being paid at a tertiary level to do a job can improve from being total shit to adequate. I’ve had maybe 1 lecturer or tutor in mathematics who got to the level of adequacy. None I would describe as good.
It’s certainly not localised to math or STEM. I’ve had and met shockingly incompetent people in humanities tutoring or lecturing positions. I have seen the same problem of the teachers not bothering to learn anything about the students’ interests, aims or knowledge backgrounds occur again and again. The same unwillingness to bridge any kind of gap between themselves and the students in terms of understanding (which is what makes a good teacher).
I’ve had to painstakingly teach my math lecturers how to teach, like dragging a cat against its will. And I’ve reformed a couple of them, including through bringing their superiors down on them. (And I really let those people off far too easy.)
My point is that it’s also trash in this respect.
There is nothing difficult about teaching mathematics, or teaching anything, unless I’m some sort of one in a million freak incidence of a natural teacher.
But if that’s the case, then I can confidently say that people need to learn how to teach.
All academia is bad. We need to reform or abolish it.
