Why is it so hard to teach?

It is really amazing that we can not explain quite easily things that we know, or at least we think that we know well. I see students that even if they have been taught a simple method, let’s say last year or last semester, they are unable to recall it one semester after. I do not think this is a student’s problem actually. The student read the material, completed the assignments, took the exams. But still there is a gap of knowledge… Why? where does this come from and why it is always the same, since I was an undergraduate student, 4 years ago. I remember that this is the “global” idea many students have into their minds for teaching, many years now. Why is it so hard?

I had the chance to be a teaching assistant this semester, so I am trying to understand.. guess what.. I can not find it and amazingly I do the same mistakes that my teachers did. What did I learn then? how to teach following the same mistakes as 20 years ago? Is it something psychological that we do not know yet ? .. students are leaving the class without understanding, it sounds frightening..

Being stubborn with research

Many times in my student life I have been stubborn. I have been stubborn about finishing up things that I started even if I knew that there was a chance of failure, especially with my research experiments into the laboratory. When the risk factor was high and the project failed, I was thinking if it is actually good to be stubborn. This is  probably common for many people. We have the tendency to feel useless when something does not work.

The interesting part and sometimes amazing for me, is that being stubborn or let’s say over-ambitious that what I am doing will work the same as every time, but, while not being exactly the same, has educated me. Stubbornity, when it is personal and does not affect other peoples’ lives, can be fruitful.. We feel bad to be stubborn, of course, because it is something bad in our perception – when we were kids we had to listen to our parents, not being stubborn. But you will find something different than last time when you were not stubborn! That’s how everything started..

I just said “why not?” why not taking the risk? if it will not work I will do it again. It was just me that I had to take a fast decision. In research especially, you have to say quite often “why not?” and then… yeah, you enjoy what you found -maybe minor learning values, but you discovered them by yourself. If they are already found by others, now you know how they were discovered  ; )

It takes more time and effort, but you get paid into knowledge, which is invaluable.

So, being stubborn with your research, it’s good..