Education

Can we make a living in Education?

Some earn higher salaries than others, but all in all, society recognizes the need to educate the younger generations, and there are consensuses on what an education means. In my case I teach hard science, meaning that some mathematics is involved.

Like any language, mathematics requires practice; as they say practice makes perfect. Students do well when motivation drives them to do the same thing over and over again. This is not much different from throwing a ball to a wall for our team to beat everybody in the baseball tournament. One important difference though, is that very young students don't see the relationship between writing equations over and over again, and competing with their peers for recognition and rewards.

One consequence of the abstract character of mathematics is that students do not know what, how, or why they do mathematics. It seems natural to place somebody with more experience in charge to guide them. That guide role is the one I try to perform. I have to confess that I have not been as successful as I wanted. At most I teach twenty percent of the students, the other eighty percent do not learn as well.