another teaching stint.

in two weeks i've subbed for two of my g.s.i. friends and i think i've become more boring than i used to be. it's either that or more likely, students really don't find single-variable differential calculus very interesting, at all.

i can't blame them. a basic calculus course is boring, in the same way that most courses in basic methods are boring. there are better words to say this, so here are some of paul graham's:

"I'm not saying we should let little kids do whatever they want. They may have to be made to work on certain things. But if we make kids work on dull stuff, it might be wise to tell them that tediousness is not the defining quality of work, and indeed that the reason they have to work on dull stuff now is so they can work on more interesting stuff later. [1]"

it's assuming, of course, that there is a "later."

i can't quite perceive the reason or cause, but somehow the calculus of Newton and Leibniz seems to take a hallowed role in being "educated," if only to use the right keyword.

for quite a few disciplines, i believe that calculus is quite useless. in a greater sense, mathematics as it exists is often little in worth, and so is the nature of philosophy. As a curiosity, it disciplines the mind without actually being inherently useful for anything.

so it stands. for many calculus is another hoop to jump, through the obstacle course that is college. add the psychological effects of math anxiety and the societal norm of innumeracy, and it's a wonder i can teach calculus with any conviction at all.

[1] short for 'graduate student instructor.' in the mathematics department, almost all the calculus classes (save the honors courses) are taught by g.s.i.'s in exchange for funding and tuition privileges.