h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From reading the other threads, i've noticed that most peoples favourite subject is usually linked to the teacher of that subject being enthusiastic and fun.

To you think this is true, or are there other reasons for certain subjects being your favourite?



I've always admired teachers that manage to stay enthusiastic even though they have to come in every day and teach a load of anoying brats about whatever strange things the government have decided to put in the national curriculum.

Well, I think a really good teacher can make a subject you otherwise hate *endurable*, but won't make it exactly fun.

I think it's definately true that a good teacher makes a good subject. I hated english untill I had a specific teacher, untill I realised what the subject was actually about, and now I'm in the second year of an A-level in it. I think most of the reasons for disliking a subject are directly or indirectly that a teacher just doesn't understand what the subject is really ABOUT, or how to properly teach the subject. Like in maths, it's taught as processes rather than (as I think it should be) things with specific meanings, the processes to manipulate them treated less rigidly.

I think a good teacher can bring people to an understanding of a subject, and a good teacher can bring a subject to life, so that people who might have previously disliked a class find it interesting and exciting. But it takes reall quite a bad teacher to stifle a natural interest in a subject. I had teachers that had a pretty good go at killing my interest in music, and who tried to make languages seem dull and drab, but they never succeeded. I'm still a linguist, and I took my interest in music elsewhere!

It's definitely not exclusive, though. I loved English at school, despite having a very poor and unimaginative teacher.

B

I think you're both right there, I've always loved physics, and despite that the physics teaching in our school is a joke (we're now a "specialist science, maths and technology" college as well, apparently - pah! It's all very well having fancy smartboards, but it doesn't make up for the fact that my physics teacher doesn't understand what 'exponential' means), I've been persuing it independantly... IMO it's usually impossible to dampen true enthusiaism.

I remember not taking subjects when I had the choice because I had been put off them by certain teachers. Now - many years later - I am finding that the subjects were interesting and may have been more interesting than some of the ones I took.

I'm still in school so I have no problem remembering what is was like. I find that the lessons I enjoy the most are the lessons that I have a good teacher for and I think that most people in my school think the same way. Obviously there will always be some people who don't fit into this generalisation but there always is.