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Comment by otoburb | Hacker News Reader

I've seen parents fall into two camps when this dynamic arises in classes with a wide(r) spectrum of ability:

First group of parents are happy that kids are helping each other out, acting as "teacher aides" for their class peers, especially the parents of kids being helped because this dynamic drops the "teacher"-to-student ratio (i.e. slightly more individualized attention per student at the expense of the student teaching assistants).

Second group of parents acknowledge that student teaching assistants develop some form of leadership skills but aren't happy that the tradeoff seems to be at the expense of learning new knowledge that the teacher should, in theory, be imparting. Also, there's probably a limit where student teaching assistants might/can become bored teaching instead of learning if the dynamic continues on too long or across multiple classes.

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By far the most memorable college class I took was an advanced electronics lab where I ended up as the "unofficial TA". I was by no means an expert but I guess I got a reputation for picking the material up quickly and being able to help guide my classmates to the same understanding. It was honestly a little stressful but in retrospect being pushed to internalize what I was learning deeply enough to be able to explain it clearly to fellow students was highly beneficial to my own learning process. I was never all that interested in grad school or academia, but the meta-lesson of that course has stuck with me in guiding career choices... I tend to seek out opportunities for consulting or mentoring type roles knowing that they will help further my own learning as well.

> knowledge that the teacher should, in theory, be imparting

I get that teachers at high schools are not subject matter experts, but it blows my mind that they're expected to teach topics that they themselves do not understand.

I come from a family of teachers and I've seen the effort that some of them put in behind the scenes to learn these topics, and they do have the best of intentions, but if I was a parent and found out my kid's teacher was all "I don't know this topic so you guys just do whatever" I'd be a bit peeved as well.

> if I was a parent and found out my kid's teacher was all "I don't know this topic so you guys just do whatever" I'd be a bit peeved as well.

That's certainly a bad situation, but the teacher's attitude can make a world of difference.

I heard a very interesting response from a student in one of those classes where the teacher didn't know much. Essentially, "This class was really interesting. I never would have learned any of this stuff without (the teacher) taking the risk." The student's other choices were band or study hall, not Advanced Swift with Chris Lattner.

I assume around here people understand that real SW devs easily make twice what a teacher makes, and there's just no way a school could afford someone who "really" knew what they were doing on a technical front. (Of course there are other factors, but suppose you found one cs teacher and they do great work. Now how do you find another? It seems like panning for gold.)

From what I've seen, the vast majority of high schools still hold the belief that CS in a branch of "business", and those in charge know neither pedagogy nor content.

This is either way too cynical or an obvious consequence of the free market economy.

I think things can be done differently, but there are some hard constraints in place.

The problem is how things are taught.

Things are discovered, this is a messy, error prone process full of false leads, backwards reasoning and incorrect assumptions. Then this is compiled into a neatly ordered stream. and feed to others. the problem is that the neatly ordered stream is boring, uninteresting and hard to focus on.

There is a hidden aspect to teaching. When done well it is not to just impart knowledge on a subject. It is how to learn.

The best classes I have ever taken, the most interesting ones that have stuck with me the longest. Were with a teacher who did not know the subject well but was enthusiastic about learning it and was able to guide the class into learning it together. When you learn this way the process is more akin to discovering a thing for the first time. you first hand experience the things that don't work, you understand not only what the thing is but why it is.

The best teachers are able to recreate the experience of discovery when teaching. Most are unable. I know I have a hard time teaching in an interesting manner.

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