Re: Today's jaw dropper

[brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>]

At 09:02 10/8/97 -0500, Richard Grandy wrote:
> There seems to be a curious, i.e., questionable,  presumption in recent
> posts to this thread that there are established correlations between a
> person being:
> 1.  a significant scientific innovator
> 2.  a good teacher
> 3.  a model for, or judge of, moral behavior

> I see no reason to think that these are necessarily correlated. 

I sincerely hope you're right. As far as I can tell, the U.S. 
educational system is predicated on the basis that you can usually
seperate the functions of university level research and university 
level teaching completely. Hence a purported linkage between
item 1 and item 2 would be either vestigial or missing in most 
colleges.
 A linkage from either of these two to item 3 is quite laughably
improbable, yet if teachers in the trenches derive a fancied 
empathic support from eminent researchers, when opining in the 
other two areas, why would one want to remove that emotional 
support simply on the basis of the facts? (I ask myself...)

Similarly, if it feeds the natural amour-propre of suitably inclined 
physics professors to dish out moral advice, who is really harmed?

I suspect a better case could be made for the transfer of skills
between some closer categories ( here you give a glancing recognition
to the possibility - but perhaps 'sideswipe' is the more descriptive
verb than 'glance' in this respect - when you mention "teachers 
facilitating PhEd's in transit.")

  This is what I mean to say:
I think a link could be forged between good teachers and students
who become good teachers. 
( I speak of a link in the sense of research statistics.)

In the same way, I would not dismiss the link between good researchers
and students who become good researchers; and for that matter
I don't decry the possibility of moral leaders 'facilitating'
students with good moral precepts.

This 'comparability of tasks' is after all the basis for the 
taxpayer spending many many  billions in training military 
people using ersatz machines - 
whether they are called flight simulators, tank trainers or 
bridge/combat trainers. It is established that the closer the task
correspondance to reality, the better the training transfer.


> I see no reason to think that brilliance in research has any correlation
> with teaching excellence.  And no reason to think that even excellent
> teaching can turn a good student into a significant innovator.
> Non-brilliance in, non-brilliance out.  A good teacher facilitates a Ph. d.
> in transit.

I regret that you pin all your hopes for success on a unitary factor called
'brilliance', a pseudonym for intelligence, I suppose.
This is almost unAmerican! There are results that show that more
than a quite modest surfeit of 'brains' does not go with greatly 
increased life-success... I would like you to think that a good 
experimental researcher can rub off some helpful research traits on a 
student researcher.
> > But if not, that's not unusual. I don't believe that Einstein, Schroedinger
> > or Feynman turned out any notable (i.e., famous) students.

This counts as nothing more than personal speculation: but these folks
were not principally experimentalists. Theorists have much less accessible
skills and talents to demonstrate to those around them.

> I don't think Einstein ever had an academic position where he would have
> had students. 

You are discounting his months(!) at Prague.
His son describes it best in retrospect ( though he was but 6 at 
the time...) "He had to lecture" [on a schedule bw] "on experimental 
physics. And he was always happy when something went..right."

Regards



brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK