One of the things that seems so unfair as a teacher is that the students stay the same age but I age. Ha ha ha.
Kidding aside, it is striking how unchanged the students are over time. Their attitudes, fears, competences are all the same as a decade or more ago -- I suspect the same as a century ago (I gave my first class was in 1980 as a TA and the students seem very much now as they did then).
It is easy to complain about how the world has gone from bad to worse over time. We all see our youth as the Golden Age of hard working, polite and ambitious young people. But if we are honest we will admit that at least some of us were lazy, loud mouthed louts with the ambition of a slug. Some of us grew up to be leaders in society while others grew to be street people. Just like the students in my class today.
The past is much like the present. We may have some fancy toys -- and technical knowledge does grow from generation to generation -- but wisdom does not. We are our parents.
Perhaps the ancient Egyptians were right in seeing the world as a wheel. There really is nothing new under the Sun.
Kidding aside, it is striking how unchanged the students are over time. Their attitudes, fears, competences are all the same as a decade or more ago -- I suspect the same as a century ago (I gave my first class was in 1980 as a TA and the students seem very much now as they did then).
It is easy to complain about how the world has gone from bad to worse over time. We all see our youth as the Golden Age of hard working, polite and ambitious young people. But if we are honest we will admit that at least some of us were lazy, loud mouthed louts with the ambition of a slug. Some of us grew up to be leaders in society while others grew to be street people. Just like the students in my class today.
The past is much like the present. We may have some fancy toys -- and technical knowledge does grow from generation to generation -- but wisdom does not. We are our parents.
Perhaps the ancient Egyptians were right in seeing the world as a wheel. There really is nothing new under the Sun.
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