“Best for students or convenient for us” this
is a good question. I think this question can be reduced to whether there is a uniform
criterion to justify a good teacher. Or in other word is there some point in
life a teacher can comfortably claim he is good enough to fulfill every aspect
of teaching. Over the years the definition of teacher has changed, especially
in the last decade. A teacher used to be a person who is a master in one
particular domain, now other than that, he/she has to be sophisticated enough
to deliver his/her wisdom with the latest technical instrument.
Apparently, everybody has noticed this
urgency of this problem. During my four years teaching in Shanghai China,
multimedia instruments were commonly used in every class. To name a few, PowerPoint
presentation, DVD/VCD, projector and computer, these may sound lame now, but
they were state of arts at the moment. This example shows exactly how fast the
technology progress. I am sure, given the current tendency, it will propagate
at a pace no one can ever anticipate. Also, the Department of Shanghai
Education Bureau has a standing budget to train all the teachers no less than
once per semester, to help them keep up with not only updated technology but
also teaching skills.
So the question comes down to this, is
there a trade off between these two options. Benefit for students urge the
teacher to engage a life-long “suffer” in keep learning, while convenience for
us excuses teacher from all the “suffer”, satisfied at one point. As I said
before, provided the current trend, this trade off point may not be easily
found if not possible, this is the reason we come to this class.
In summary, the difference between a good
teacher and student is that student will not be a student once he/she graduate,
however, a good teacher will always be a student, in some sense, in the rest of
his/her life.
