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Who would you like to teach you business: someone who actually founded their own business or an academic? Who would you like to teach you surgery, a surgeon or someone who was taught just enough book knowledge to be considered a teacher? Programming by someone who never programmed? Math by someone who never used math to solve a problem in their life?

There are good teachers out there but in general I'm skeptical. Ideally teachers should have at least some real-world knowledge before becoming teachers. Unfortunately where I live teachers are a licensed occupation and you need a 5 year degree for a job with very little pay, so that by itself filters out a ton of experts who might be willing to teach.



Well, I think it's clear that teaching is a separate skillset: one that, to excel in, requires a bunch of skills that are not common. Especially when teaching below, say, 8th grade, where most of what is being taught is relatively common knowledge, I think specialized teaching skills in the hands of a gifted teacher can outpace experts in their field. (Certainly some of the experts I know have trouble expressing their expertise even to other knowledgeable people in their field, let alone children)

That being said, I think in general most children learn like a sponge when given even a tiny bit of encouragement, so it may be moot.


I don't think teachers are necessarily the main problem with the education system. The one-to-many (20+) rote, fixed curriculum, unpersonalized, forced aspects are worse. Kids provably don't learn much in school.




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