More than balancing that, however, is the exhilaration of introducing students to material that is truly exciting and often astounding to them, and of seeing (at least on a good day) their world become a bigger place right before my eyes. Not only is this revitalizing to me, but it also generates the enrollment that sustains every other course that I teach.

I take Jim’s point – to a point. But I am always encouraging my students to step outside their comfort zones, and to nurture a range of skills – including some that don’t necessarly come as easily to them as others. Should I expect any less of myself?

Likewise, some teachers have incredible presence, capturing the attention of a couple hundred people at once. Maybe they give useless comments on papers, or are no good at facilitating discussion. Should this person be put in charge of a graduate seminar?

Of course, some teachers are good at everything, and some are good at none of it. I’d love to see data speak to this, but it seems to me that different teachers have different skills, and we should put the teachers into classes where they’ll shine. How well this correlates with which classes they would choose to teach would be an interesting thing to look at.

Jim Davies
Institute of Cognitive Science