Friday, May 5, 2006
Teaching and Podcasts
I'll say the obvious. Teaching, great teachers, are the gems, the gold of any society. They are the bridge to the future — emissaries carrying the best each generation has to offer. I have never understood why the incomes of teachers were not more on a par with CEO's, or if that is too much of a reach, at least with airline pilots.
I started thinking about teaching because I have been listening to a number of podcasts, mostly science based, that are essentially recordings of university courses. I mentioned not long ago a really interesting podcast of an Astronomy course given by professor Richard Pogge at Ohio State. I am just about half-way through a new series of podcast/classes given at Berkeley by physicist Richard Muller. The class is wonderful. The subject matter is just what you would want in a physics class: not the technical underpinnings, involving several years of math, but the real world examples and principles underlying physics as it is currently constituted. Physics is the mother of the sciences, the foundationalist prime mover of all the sciences.
Muller is an exemplary teacher: an excellent, generous communicator, if somewhat distracted in a comical, absent-minded way; he is something of a ham-bone, he packs a big ego; he loves displaying his knowledge — he genuinely loves his subject — and so much more important, he communicates the wonder of the knowledge; the mystery of things.
The darker terrain: teachers are often frustrated actors who have survived the gauntlet of a guild discipline that gives them a chance to have at the ready a status that a professional actor could only wish for. Teachers have power in the classroom and so can fool themselves about their captive, dependent audiences. Because of this built in power I think many teachers begin to convince themselves that they are really, truly, fascinating, riveting individuals; that the smiles of those bright young faces is pure admiration — the professors don't hear that at least some of the laughter at their small witticisms is nervous and forced.
Like a drop of ink in clear water, in any audience, there are those who don't care, for whatever reason. This inattentiveness gives rise in the podcasts to some funny, embarrassing moments. In one of these classes I audited, a biology course, the teacher would stop and scold two girls for talking, his ire rising like a comedian in a slow burn — he didn't seem to realize that thousands were listening; Muller himself will note publicly that someone is sleeping and ask that they be brought back to wakefulness — no doubt to the student's great embarrassment, although you don't see that on the podcast, which is almost worse.
They really need producers for these podcasts. Those remonstrances should probably not be aired; class housekeeping should be edited: homework and tests and cheating discussions, kept out of the public view of a podcast. Muller seemed petulant in his talking about cheaters, undignified; although obviously, the issue is a legitimate one, especially, if like Muller, you care. Muller, and the biology professor, felt dissed. But these podcasts are the public airwaves — someone needs to edit this stuff. A university might say, these podcasts are just an add-on, our students are our focus. Again, they are airing this stuff, that changes things whether they want it to or not. Clearly the teachers are delighted at the far reach of the podcasts — in every single course they will mention at some point that they received an email from a distant locale — a point of pride and delight. They will have to live with the responsibilities of that greater audience as well.
Americans are particularly prone to feeling that the future can be changed for the good; that people can better themselves. Tony Soprano's Russian girlfriend said that the rest of the world doesn't understand why Americans are always trying to fix things — she said that the rest of the world just accepts things as they are. If that is true, I'll take the American way. Teaching is one vehicle that has a heavy claim on this hope for the future in America, in the world.
LinkADink — course/podcast websites:
Physics 10 — This class, discussed above, has the unfortunate subtitle — designed to flatter and deelight — Physics For Future Presidents. As I say, there is often something of the performer-huckster in good teachers. In this case, it looks like the professor is beginning the promo for a book based on his class notes. (He would better subtitle the course Mysteries of the Real.) Make sure to watch the video streams. This is a visual class — dependent on demonstration and diagrams. The class notes are voluminous but well-worth reading.
Astronomy 162 — this is professor Pogge's class on astrophysics— a great subject.