Many years ago I gained a PhD in Geography. I spent three (long) years of my life (and even longer ones for my wife!) looking at stuff in the environment which may (or may not) have increased the likelihood of children developing leukaemia.
I used some pretty sophisticated statistical methods and I even developed some of my own. There’s not much I couldn’t at one time have told you about FORTRAN random number generator algorithms (fairly random but not perfect) as applied to Monte Carlo Simulation (easy but labour-intensive!).
Of course what a PhD in Geography means in the real world is that in games of Trivial Pursuit people would expect me to know the capital city of some un-heard-of patch in the middle of no-where and exhibit an irritating combination of surprise and smugness when I didn’t.
It’s not an uncommon phenomenon, I know. Ask a historian a date and they may well struggle if it’s not their particular part of history. Ask a musician to play something by Bach and they’ll struggle if they’re a specialist in 20th Century trombone music!
- Image by filmvanalledag via Flickr
Somehow, however, we seem, deep down in our heart of hearts, to accept that no one can be an expert in everything in their field… so why is it, then, please tell me, that everyone thinks they can teach?
Just like almost everyone can kick a football and that seems to give them a right to second guess the manager of their national team, almost everyone has been at school and been taught – and this seems, somehow, to give them the right to second guess their children’s teachers.
I’m sure there are crap teachers (I’ve met some, trained some and been taught by some) but the vast majority of teachers I’ve met have been talented, focused and gifted. They were genuinely excited by the progress their pupils made and tended not to resent the ignorant jokes about their short working hours and long holidays. Occasionally they might heave a sigh about their 60 hour weeks, but I don’t begrudge them that.
There’s more to this teaching lark than meets the eye.
I tried it for a while, when I was younger. When I was about 23 and 24 in fact.
They put me, part time, in front of classes of sixth-form girls in a private school and expected me to teach them statistics.
Right, you heard me. 22-year-old-male… 18-year-old-females. Carnage. Hell on earth. The most challenging times of my (then) life.
It was like throwing a Christian to the lions.
Maybe now, at 47, I’d be able to handle it, but somehow I doubt it.
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