Many, if not most, of us teach, in some way in some setting, far more regularly than we probably realize. Here is some advice on doing it better.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/30/463981852/how-to-be-a-great-teacher-from-12-great-teachers?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=plus.google.com&utm_medium=social
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LEGO Americana Roadshow: Building Across America I just checked out this traveling exhibition from LEGO and was quite impressed. The scale ... -
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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When we let politics trump science, people are needlessly put in harm's way. http://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/self-censoring-fears...
I just had this argument at work..
ReplyDeleteI CAN DO therefore, I don't teach.
NB, Craig Froehle, Joerg Fliege totally has you beat on his Collection name.
ReplyDeleteKelvin Williams Politely: fuck that. That's a stupid old joke which has never been true. All the great teachers I've known could do, and did, often at the very highest levels of their area of expertise.
ReplyDeleteIn fact I'll go further: if you cannot teach what you do to others, then you can't really do it --- you've just been lucky.
Shannon Roy Ooooh, I struck a nerve.
ReplyDeleteThe only ones I teach are my employees, why the fuck do I want to share my knowledge and experience when it's critical to my business.
I've been in the telecom/high tech industry for over two decades, and most of the teachers are woefully inadequate to enter the workplace. However, on the other hand, I do know some teachers of some subjects that are freaking brilliant. But in tech... I've found that those who can't, teach.
Kelvin Williams, it's harder to find technically competent and up-to-date teachers in tech because keeping up with tech takes a lot of time. If you're busy teaching rather than doing, you have less time to spend keeping current. That's actually a problem with many high-clockspeed fields (e.g., genetics), where most of the learning necessarily happens in situ. That said, even if you're just explaining a new API or cabling standard to someone, you're teaching.
ReplyDeleteKelvin Williams Gotta say I love the double-down! Listen carefully: the inability to teach others what you do is one of the primary causes of business failure. If you can't replace yourself, your business can never be bigger than you. Additionally, you can never know what you don't know, potentially trapping vast reservoirs of business knowledge that lie outside your specific skills.
ReplyDeleteBeing unable to teach isn't some heroic indicator of successful individualism -- it's a fatal flaw.
You know that phase work smarter not harder? People who can work smart know their subject so they can learn from others, cull the useless rituals and teach the task fundamentals to others so they can work smart.
ReplyDeleteKelvin Williams You wrote "...why the fuck do I want to share my knowledge and experience when it's critical to my business..."
ReplyDeleteAnd my point is that's exactly the knowledge you need to be sharing, unless you're happy limiting yourself only to ideas you yourself can think up.
I'm in "tech" too. A veteran of more than a dozen startups. Among other roles. My experience, in tech, is that it's only those who really can't (but pretend they can, or as I've said have ridden their luck) who can't teach.
By contrast, those who can are always looking for new things to add to their repertoire, and thus both teach and learn as a fundamental skill.
Good luck with whatever is working for you. But please don't try and come the grizzled veteran with those who actually are.
Well, ya know... My little circle of non teaching, all doing engineers and employees has done something so amazing that Internap is issuing a press release on Feb 9. It's embargoed until then otherwise I'd truly make this a dick measuring contest.
ReplyDeleteBut Google 373K and Internap on the 9th.
Anyway I'm out, I've got shit to do than to go back and forth with someone who is obviously butthurt by a comment in passing.