Neil Tyson Disputes Impact of Good Teachers
@neiltyson are you saying that good teachers have no impact upon a student's success? What an ignorant thing to say.
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) January 10, 2015
Keith’s note: Am I missing something? I can understand the bad teacher part, but I am just baffled at how Tyson dismisses the impact of good teachers. If anything the value of good teachers is even more important when students have to endure bad teachers. Yet Congress, NASA, and the media solicit this guy’s advice?
The responses are not exactly agreeing with what Tyson said.
Yes, I think you did miss something. I don’t think Tyson is saying that good teachers have no effect. I think he is saying that there are a lot of bad teachers out there and straight “A” students are getting their high grades either on their own initiative or because the bad teachers aren’t challenging them. The man has dedicated himself to becoming a good teacher. I doubt that he would do that if he thought that it didn’t matter.
I’m inclined to believe that a good teacher is more likely to give a bright student a “B” if he felt that that student’s work wasn’t up to his/her potential. Additionally, I think a good teacher is going to bring an unmotivated “D” student up to a “C” or a “B”. I good teacher is going to take a student who will get an “A” with almost any teacher and inspire them to pursue a career in the subject.
First if all Tyson said what he said. Reading all of this into what he wrote changes nothing. As for a teacher skewing a grade down from where a bright student’s performance should have earned it is the hallmark of a bad – and dishonest – teacher.
It’s a cooked-up story that there are a lot of bad teachers out there. There are a lot of great hard-working dedicated teachers out there who put up with poor funding and sketchy support because they love what they do and care.
Good students don’t get an A with any teacher. That’s another fallacy. Smart kids need even more support so that they don’t get bored and end up wasting the gifts they have because they never get challenged and never learn how to work.
Tyson just drives me nuts with his “I am the great wise sage, oh listen ye unwashed masses to my mastery of all things” nonsense. He needs to focus on what he knows, astrophysics, and leave the rest alone. All he manages to do is look like a darn fool.
“Yet Congress, NASA, and the media solicit this guy’s advice?”
I’ve wondered about that, as well.
Yes you are missing something.
If I have an excellent Physics teacher and a horrible French teacher and successfully get “A”s in both classes, does the Physics teacher get credit for having an impact on my A in French, or should I get credit for getting “A”s despite having one bad teacher?
What if I have a good chemistry teacher and a bad chemistry teacher in the same semester? Your logic is as odd as Tyson’s.
The label of the class is pedantic. It could be a Home Ec class and a Neo-Confucian Philosophy class for all it matters.
The point that Neil is implying is that good teachers don’t make good students. While a good teacher might motivate and adequately instruct a slacker to the point that he succeeds, that doesn’t make him a good student – they’re just that good a teacher. Likewise, a bad teacher who fails to instruct a student doesn’t make the kid a “bad student,” just one bereft of opportunity.
From that, one can infer that a student’s quality is determined by the student themselves, not the teacher. A good student will get As regardless of who’s teaching him – now, the A he gets in a good teacher’s class probably means more, but that’s tangential.
In short, he’s talking specifically about how one might identify a quality student; it’s not a statement about the impact of teachers.
Well, since neither of the subjects is comparable to the other, your scenario isn’t valid. In general, good teachers deserve some credit for how their students do. If good teachers didn’t help kids succeed, we’d have no need for teachers, would we?
The subject of Tyson’s post was the straight A student. Not the teachers. A person who gets straight As does so because she gets the help of good teachers and overcomes the bad ones to succeed. In ALL subjects ALL the time.
Where is he denying the work and merit of a good teacher?
Remember this is in the context of a straight A student. Not students or education in general. Do not extrapolate intent when the evidence is not there to support it.
He should credit the good teachers just as he so readily criticizes the bad teachers. As it stands, a reasonable interpretation of his statement is that students only need to survive the bad teachers.
Huh? You just said that they good teachers are the ones having the impact.
“Keith’s note:
Am I missing something? I can understand the bad teacher part, but I am
just baffled at how Tyson dismisses the impact of good teachers.”
The subject of the sentence is “students who earn straight “A”s”
and effect of bad teachers upon them. The subject of sentence is not good teacher and what they do or don’t do.
So suppose what Tyson is saying is for student to focus on being straight “A” students. Or it’s not really up to teachers to make you into a straight “A” student. Though they do a lot to inspire many students to want to be straight “A” students.
Some students are “lost” and can’t be straight “A” student but for others it is a choice.
I have no idea what his youth was like. I am simply responding to the words he used today.
Tyson says a lot of ignorant things. If he were an athlete, he’d be considered one of the most overrated players in the nation.
My impression is that he’s your typical condescending narcissist, who thinks the great unwashed cannot do without his unique “wisdom.” His tweets about Christians over the holidays certainly showed a lack of empathy. The rest has been on neon-light display for years. Ego? A Falcon Heavy couldn’t launch it.
There, I said it. Feel better already.
This is probably a good opportunity to note my gratitude for all of the teachers I have had throughout all walks of life, both formal and informal, good, bad, or otherwise, without whom I would not have a fraction of the education that I do. Neil deGrasse Tyson was not one of them.
What anyone “missed” is not obvious nor certain from Tyson’s words. They’re hardly conclusive in their meaning. He should have thought a bit more before sending them to the world.
Straight “A” students. I get what Tyson is saying here.
Straight up Boolean.
Twitter has its limitations, this is just an offhand comment. Dr. Tyson should explain in more detail what he meant. In general I think having even a few good teachers can be quite motivating.
I’m glad I did not go to school with you ….
I would be very careful in distinguishing between a good student and an A student. In my experience, I have seen many A students that were incompetent idiots capable of memorizing volumes of instructions and descriptions but couldn’t solve a simple project that wasn’t like one of the examples in a textbook. Those students do not need nor require a good teacher. Its the B and C student that struggles with understanding of the subject that benefits most from having a good/interesting teacher.
I agree. My son took a AP physics course in HS and the teacher was so bad that My son ended up teching the class during the free period. My son gat an A and the teacher got fired.
So my son got a A “In SPite” of a bad teacher.
I think the point NDGTyson is making is that the students who excel by their nature will excel with or without good teachers.