Who trains these ideots?

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Following on from Georgineer, I have found that there are some people who I can relate to through their writings and hence from whom I can learn. There are others who I find boring, dry as dust, or just not inspiring, or even just useless. In the former category are Tubal Cain (T.D. Walshaw) and T.K.Hemingway (head of electronics at BAE who wrote two books Electronic Designers Handbook & Circuit Consultants Casebook) In the second category was a lecturer at the Technology College I attended many years ago, who, when asked about a question in the previous year's examination which I failed, admitted that he had not covered that part of the syllabus.

Tubal Cain always makes sense, the trouble is that I then have difficulty remembering it, whilst the circuits I designed to Hemingway's principles worked first time, every time (mind you, the logic behind the circuits might have been duff, but the circuit elements certainly were not).

All of this reminds me of a story of a college lecturer, Phd no less, who was teaching a class of GPO/BT technicans and who kept having a go at us, and referring to the subject matter as "Noddy & BigEars". One day, he said something and we all sat there like a load of statues, until he said something rather more rude. Then one of our number, a man noted for his sarcasm came out with "We are wondering who are Noddy & BigEars". Collapse of class, and a redfaced lecturer who never again used that phrase.

In another instance, our Maths lecturer was teaching us how to calculate the area of a non-right angle triangle (you must realise that none of us had anything higher than 'O' level maths) when he gave us a triangle with sides which were a multiple of 3-4-5 to calculate. Two of us quickly realised that this and shouted out the answer much to the lecturers consternation as he himself hadn't realised! Needless to say we then had to do it the way he was teaching, which was fair enough really.

Peter G. Shaw

[Jon LawesParticipant @jonlawes51698]

I think I was a good teacher ( I taught motorsport engineering at a college, and avionics to MoD Apprentices). What I wasn't any good at was keeping up with the mountain of paperwork the education system threw at me. I think to be honest it was my failing, the other teachers seemed to cope ok. Eventually it caught up with me and I left the College and went back into engineering first hand. I enjoy teaching apprentices much more; 1:1 guidance and watching them learn and improve, especially as they get to grips with problem solving.

[Enough!Participant @enough]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 20/08/2020 19:13:44:

What was said about walking a mile in the other man's shoes?

You mean:

" Before criticising someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way when you criticise him you're a mile away. And you have his shoes. "

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

So you can run faster than him?

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