On Teaching

Here's one of the best teachers as well as researchers this world has seen (so it's possible to excel at both without making excuses!) talking about teaching strategies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY6VntTmtIo

Just observe how humble he is! Despite already being acknowledged as a genius, his mind is still so open, still thinking about the best ways to teach students of different personalities.

My favorite part is from 0:54 - 0:58: "What hooks them on? What makes them interested? How do you direct them to become interested?"

Just look at him! Willing to go to t = 0 for a student and take him/her along from there! To generate interest in the first place!

This needs to be seen not just by teachers and professors, but by each and every academic administrator who has forgotten that academic excellence in a university starts from the most logical point you can think of: it's classrooms!

As far as I'm concerned, the title of a "Professor" is to be reserved only for those who participate enthusiastically in all aspects of academics: undergraduate teaching, graduate teaching, theses guidance and independent research. Take any of these aspects away and its best if we use some other title. The word "Professor" - literally: one capable of professing a subject - is just too sacred to be used without a complete immersion in academics.

We can, and must, bring this spirit back. But it will not happen till university administrators start explicitly considering excellence in all three: teaching, research and service on an equal footing when it comes to tenure and career progression.

This is, unfortunately, not the case today. Teaching is severely undervalued in many universities - and this is costing us tremendously - as generations of students are going through college and graduating without being taught brilliantly - something each and every student deserves.