Re: List of Lists

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Tue, 14 Sep 1999, Doug Craigen wrote:

> John S. Denker wrote:
> > 2) More generally:  A wizard shouldn't give away all his tricks, but here's
> > a hint:  AltaVista is a pretty big stick.  Lots of fun.  Learning how to
> > wield it properly is (for me anyway) well worth the investment.

ROTFL!

A *teacher* should give away all of his tricks, diagramming them in
exquisite detail and constantly inventing more tricks to give away.
That's the Feynman trick: pulling full-blown magic secrets out of the
superconscious realms, and giving them away for free.

What's important is not the hidden knowledge one has accumulated.  What's
important is the *original* knowledge one assembles from sheer creativity
and cussedness.  A "wizard" is in it for the self-important ego-crap, and
will damage his or her students far more than he or she educates them. God
save us from explainers who don't know how to create new explainers. Steer
clear of those who consider themselves to be "wizards", and who need to
accumulate secrets in order to magically turn all of their students into a
low, common rabble whom they deign to drop tidbits of knowledge upon.

But then, any student of Feynman should be well aware of what makes a good
educator.


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William J. Beaty                                  SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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