Originally posted by greenplastic
Lol I am an undergrad. And yea I'm dumb as shit sometimes. My qualm is that they'll do things like this but then leave out details about a lot of the more complicated theory which is the shit everyone really needs to be learning. I think it's because they are biased because they already know it. Like for example I was asking one of my TA's about a problem that involved getting two equations and then solving them using linear algebra. The linear algebra part is easy as shit, it's just you needed to understand a couple key concepts to actually get one of the equations, but when I asked about it, he just assumed I didn't know how to do the algebra and explained that for like 5 minutes while everyone in the class is thinking "why the fuck is he talking about this?"
Yeah, I assumed you were in undergrad. I guess what I meant is that what's worth taking the time to go over looks different when you're trying to teach 10-30 people something vs. when you're trying to learn it personally. It sounds like you already know a lot of the material, and it definitely sucks to sit through stuff that people should already know. On the other hand when you're teaching and you're trying to get, say, 80% of the class to pass then it means you need to pitch your teaching at the 20th percentile student and cover material that most of the class already knows.
Now when it comes to leaving stuff out on more complicated topics, you're probably right with that they already know it and don't know what needs more coverage. It's hard to remember what learning something was like when you've had your nose in it for years but then that's what a teacher does so that's fair criticism. I just remember being frustrated a lot at wasting time on basic material in classes where I was interested in the subject and then when I taught my first class I realized why it was happening.
