Do you need good communication skills to teach others?

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DuneyBlues
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07 Dec 2011, 9:30 am

I want to get a PhD in Computational Geometry , but I don't know if I can teach others?

Are there any aberrant professors / teachers who can give me advice?

I don't want to lose interest.


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hadrian_f
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07 Dec 2011, 1:15 pm

There are aspies who can't bring themselves to talk to a girl next to them in the train, yet be confident and eloquent in front of an entire class of students. A few questions you might want to answer:
- Did you have difficulty giving a speech or something like that in front of your class in High School?
- Did you often explain topics to classmates when they did not understand it yet?

If you can answer yes to both, than maybe you could teach, but it's not easy. This is true for Aspies as well as NTs, you need didactic skills as well as the confidence to go in front of a class.



xmh
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07 Dec 2011, 1:39 pm

The answer may depend on what age/level your students would be.

Working at a school would be completely different from working at a university.



BigSnoopy126
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07 Dec 2011, 2:51 pm

Agree with xmh, also wanted to add that you need to at least, on some level, be able to understnad what needs people hve. That doesn't mean you need complete empathy, but if a student is struggling, the lower the grade level, the less likely they might feel comfortable going to you thesmelves, so you need to seek them out.

I don't just mean struggling ith grades, either. Say a student just lost a member of the family. It'll be hard for anyone, but a college student might be more able to talk about it than a high school student. You can always ask another teacher or someone to to approach that person if you can't bring yourself to, of course. But you have to be willing to help someone who is having trouble understanding the subject and at least considerte.

No matter where you teach, you don't have to be all chatty in a course - I remember recommending a college history professor this way: "All he does is lecture, but all Nolan Ryan does is pitch." In other words, there was no time for questions, no chitchat, but he was so incredible, so good with details, and could make it so interesting and understandable (Russian History was his subject) that it didn't matter - he was as great at his craft as the Hall of Fame pitcher at his.

hadrian_f's questiosn are good, too, and I would add to them, "Can you explain some facet of the subject to someone in such a way that they will understand it." You don't have to be a Picasso painting a picture of your subject like that Russian History prof - but you have to be able to make it understandable enough that the students will say, "I get it."



DuneyBlues
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07 Dec 2011, 5:32 pm

Thanks for the posts!


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I've been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain