> I say "trying" to teach because my opinion of the matter is that if you
> can't get a fully-auditory learning person through a standard college
> level algebra class (just an example of a "simple" math class) with a
> good grade, you might be good at math, but you're not yet a good
> *teacher* of math.  Professional teachers know about learning styles and

This may sound old-fashioned of me, but I think that students are in
college, to learn, not to be taught. This means that knowledge is not
spoon-fed to you like it was in elementary school, but rather presented
for you to take or not as you choose. In college you need to not only
read *all* the material and do the problems, but you need to research
on your own. If you're not doing that, you're wasting everybody's time.

If you don't come to college to learn (and I am talking both of students
*and* professors) you shouldn't be there. IMNSHO, of course.

It's a harsh statement, but I think that the good teachers need to be
in the K-12 environment. After that schooling is optional and if the
student doesn't want to learn, why should the "system" help them?

> Unfortunately today in the U.S., many math departments also have a large
> percentage of people from non-English speaking countries who are working
> their way through academic research here in the U.S. who have heavy
> accents, and the accent and the inability to clearly articulate their
> knowledge is a huge detriment for an auditory learner in an already

Yes. I still remember a course in mathematical mechanics where it took
me several days to realize what "angle arfa in the plan of the blackboard"
meant. I got the source material because I actually read the books and
did the homework assignments. I just couldn't understand what the teacher
(a full professor BTW) was saying.
-- 
D. Jay Newman           ! Politicians and civilizations come and
jay@sprucegrove.com     ! go but the engineers and machinists 
http://enerd.ws/robots/ ! make progress
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