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NPR is starting off a series titled "50 Great Teachers" and is starting with Socrates:
We're starting this celebration of teaching with Socrates, the superstar teacher of the ancient world. He was sentenced to death more than 2,400 years ago for "impiety" and "corrupting" the minds of the youth of Athens.
But Socrates' ideas helped form the foundation of Western philosophy and the scientific method of inquiry. And his question-and-dialogue-based teaching style lives on in many classrooms as the Socratic method.
Most of us have been influenced by our teachers, and some of them may have even been great ones even if, unlike Socrates, they toiled in anonymity. So, I ask this question: Who were (or are) your greatest teachers, why, and what did you learn from them that made them so great?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday October 30 2014, @01:29AM
One teacher who comes to mind was named Mr. Mattison, who was an instructor in the USAF electronic principles class on Lackland Air Force Base. He was twice demoted while in the service for getting into fights and had much of his teeth knocked out. He was the first person to show us why radially-mounted capacitors had slots in them, because he would get one and put each lead into the hot/neutral slots of a power strip and flick the light switch, causing it to literally blow its top ("open a window before the fire alarm goes off. Thank you.")
He had a laser-pointer he liked to shine in the eyes of pigeons resting outside the windows, and gave us another informative lesson about what happens when you plug 120 VAC into a chip designed for only a few volts DC. Predictably, the microprocessor training set the USAF was phasing out went "Poof!" and emitted a puff of smoke.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30 2014, @02:08AM
Reminds me of the time Richard Feynman got into a fight in the men's room of a bar. He showed up in class the next day with a black eye and leaned over the lectern and said menacingly, "Any questions?"
BTW Feynman's on the NPR list too. I know that for sure, and I haven't seen the list.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 30 2014, @03:27PM
Sounds like a poor role model and very immature.
Nope, just an asshole .
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 31 2014, @01:42AM
Sounds like a poor role model and very immature.
[...]
Nope, just an asshole .
This isn't finishing school. What makes great teachers is often very counterintuitive.