title:
enjoying teaching as a science, from a teaching assistant's perspective
(in english and partially in lisp)
(First edition: May, 1996; corrected and edited: November, 2000)


dedication:
to the fair sisters t.k. and o.k. (in anti-alphabetical order)


conventions:
again make all the letters small; parts and questions, as well as volumes
are numbered by arab numerals.


introduction:
it has been known for long, long, long time that it is in perverse human
nature to consider enjoyment by different things to be the most enjoyable
thing.  this manual tries to expand the limits of possible enjoyment reasons
beyond any reasonable limits to include the teaching process.  after all,
all the factors like interaction, regularity, and payment, pertinent to
another enjoyable process (question #1: which process?), are present in this
particular case.  so what stops the teacher from enjoying the process?  it
seems obvious that the one who pays money gets more fun than the one who
gets money.  would not that be unjust if the one who got the money also got
the fun?  so one of the obvious ways to make teachers enjoy the process is
to make them pay for it.  this manual is an alternative way.


part 1:
resolving money issues
the first and the easiest part of conversion would be to forget about the
money involved.  indeed, the amount of money received in comparison with the
amount of efforts and time spent is not worth mentioning.  the money paid,
being an imaginary entity (who ever saw it?), can be taken to be a purely
imaginary number, worth mentioning only in the beginning of a complex
analysis course (see vol. 2 of this manual as a good intro to the subject).
so, as mr. kant used to say, the issue resolves itself upon looking at it
from a proper prospective (like most singularities disappear when looking at
them at a non-singular angle, don't they? (question #2: do or don't they?))


part 2:
review of enjoyment process
there must be vast literature on the subject from less and more
knowledgeable people than i am.  for our purposes, we will define it as a
process not necessary for sustaining of life to which a person would return
regularly according to his/her own will.  for example, eating according to
one's needs does not  involve enjoyment, although eating beyond one's needs
does.  for a good introduction to the theory of enjoyment with more precise
definitions and clearcut examples one can turn to vol. 3 of the manual.
here we will only briefly state the consequence that teaching at this point
is not considered as being such, although it satisfies the part of not being
"necessary for sustaining of life" and the regularity requirement.
apparently, the only thing that prevents a person from enjoying the process
is his/her will.


part 3:
turning the wheels (or rather wills)
there are several ways of coping with one's will.  first, the easiest and
the most common one is to buy it.  it was termed "mental prostitution"
(which is defined in vol. 4 of the manual) but due to reasons stated in part
1, in our particular case it is of very low level and will be abandoned.
also notice that the above sentence contains a hint to question #1.

the second way requires an uncommon for some of us activity, careful
thinking.  theory of thinking is best explained in vol. 4 of the manual.  if
we think carefully enough, it comes to mind that using our wills as tools we
can actually modify them.  in a sense, will is one of few phenomena that can
affect themselves (with many other instruments it looks more like trying to
bite one's ear).  thus, upon adjusting one's will (or wheel if you will) one
can achieve results of tremendous impression strength.  the rest of the
manual is actually devoted to demonstrating on particular examples how one
can disorient (or, more positively, orient in other direction(s)) one's
will.


part 4:
case study #1: preparation to a teaching session
in general, preparation can hardly be avoided.  therefore it must be
transformed from a simply time consuming process to an enjoyable time
consuming process, which is simply an enjoyable process (by an earlier
remark of w. shakespeare).  there are several ways of doing it.  the first
one was proposed by pavlov and essentially amounts to developing some
acquired reflexes.  for example, if you enjoy listening to bach's violin
concerti, you can turn one on and prepare while it is playing.  this creates
an association between the absolutely enjoyable thing (concerti i mean) and
the thing to become enjoyable (preparation is meant).

however, the other side of the same coin is that it also creates an
association between yet disgusting thing (i mean preparation) and the thing
which could possibly become such (question #3: what is this  thing?)  in
fact, the second association is somewhat stronger and usually prevails.
thus, rephrasing bulgakov, don't you ever prepare for teaching  while
listening to something better than that.  also you may notice a more subtle
effect on your will - it gets twisted rather than turned.

the only alternative to the above development of reflexes is searching and
finding positive sides (question #4: what else can one search and find (not
find in most cases)?) in the activity.  for example, an immediate
consequence of the compensation principle (vol. 5 of the manual gives quite
readable introduction to the subject) is that spending time on preparation
you are not wasting it on other (think of dangerous or harmful) things,
e.g., gambling, drinking and driving, or teaching itself.

next, consider your next date with your favorite girlfriend.  what would be
a better way to begin an entertaining talk than something like "have you
heard last news about the radii of the inscribed into regular polytopes
spheres" or "is not it wonderful that sin(x) is an odd function and cos(x)
is actually an even one"?  developing the subject further makes the
girlfriend at least temporarily unavailable for a talk about  "beverly
hills" and "friends" which in turn can easily lead to something more than a
dinner.  although, chances are that something less than a dinner may follow
as well.

finally, recall what you're preparing for.  teaching is in some degree a
communication process.  there are talkers and there are listeners.  it's
evident that you are unlikely to find there talkers better than yourself,
and i bet you'll be the one next time.  however, the narrow range of the
listeners' interests will hardly allow them to listen to something else but
a continuation of the last talk.  thus, to avoid external disturbances of
your great speech, what else can you do but prepare (in parentheses we
notice, not only the speech, but yourself as well).

here come  the first 5 research topics.  namely, think of 5 other reasons
for preparing  to teaching.  best ones will be included in the later
editions of the manual.


part 5:
case study #2: teaching itself
the first idea that comes to mind would be to use the compensation principle
(see above and below). suppose we did that.  what other positive sides can
we find?  secondly, rather abstractly and remotely, we can imagine the
teaching process as gradual lifting the general level of the students to
such where one should be able to hope to find understanding of a few more
meaningful words and phrases, sometimes going beyond the scope of the
course.  it does not always happen, but it is very rewarding to see after
just one semester of teaching some resemblance of an understanding look or a
blink of a meaningful smile shining on one face or another.  jewels are
found sometimes, and toilsome work is needed always.  this seems to be an
easy corollary of the law of ever increasing enthropy.  exercise #1:
formulate the law and derive the corollary (see pp. 121-154 of vol. 6 of the
manual for an answer).

next, thinking for a moment about your purely abstract and imaginary concern
of the society needs, you'll realize that keeping those youngsters inside
the classroom you actually keep them outside of the outside of the classroom
(including streets, casinos, and prisons).  here we again see an application
of the ever so pervasive compensation principle.  by the way, it follows
that the more homework you give them, the better you serve the society and,
considering yourself a part of the society, yourself.  (see more on
homeworks below).  exercise #2: state other effects of teaching on society,
e.g., on book publishing and pen-making industries.

finally, it will be quite appropriate to imagine a teacher as a solo player
on the few instruments he has (mind, face, and hands are among those).  if
you're not a born player on other, more common instruments like lutes,
theorbos, and organs, let yourself be heard by a less exacting and more
compassionate audience.  let your voice and sound resonate in so suitable
for this half-empty rooms (question #5: does the adjective "half-empty"
apply to rooms only?)  give those eyes the possibility to see in front of
them something more than their usual lot.  be creative and ingenious and
bring into existence for at least a brief moment of time a piece of the
universe which  will hopefully find some reflection in so unsuitable for
this task perceiving devices of the audience.

research topics 6-10: think of 5 other reasons for teaching.  best ones will
be included in the later editions of the manual.


part 6:
case study #3: giving and grading homeworks
(question #6: what is the first idea that comes to mind?)  here we will
again apply the compensation principle but in the other direction.  namely,
all time wasted on grading homeworks can not possibly be spent on anything
else.  thus, it pays to once again to think why, when, and how (question #7:
what?).  it takes some creativity and inventiveness to put all the problems
in either the form of yes/no questions or into a jumble form.  actually, the
latter form also makes the process of solving the homework by the students
more entertaining, which does not in the least affect grading difficulty.

in fact, if you like jumbles yourself, you can give as an assignment the
problem of creating a jumble out of the answers obtained.  thus, grading the
homework reduces to solving a series of them.  this also eliminates such
issues as copying each others homework, since jumbles can be considered an
adequate fingerprinting technique (see foundations of random and criminal
fingerprinting techniques in vols.7-8 of the manual).  the process of
creating jumbles by the students also enhances their creativity immensely.
if you thought one step further, you would have considered the possibility
of actually giving the students a jumble into which they would plug in their
answers and would give back the word or the number they obtained.  question
#8: why is it not a reasonable thing to do?

now the question #9 (arises): what to give for the homework?  there are only
two very deep answers to this deep question: either something that will be
on the final or something that won't be there.  now try to think of a third
answer.  the alternative one chooses largely depends on one's attitude to
final, not to the homework itself.  it was noticed that the more a person
knows about the problem the person solves on the final, the longer the
solution of the problem tends to be.  thus, foreseeing that, one would not
give such homeworks whose counterparts will be on the exam.

however, there is then little use of giving them since nobody would try to
solve them, and the above mentioned compensation principle would never be
applied.  therefore, a wise teacher would say that the problems will most
likely be on the exam.  thus it seems that the correct solution to the above
2-choice question is "will" rather than "won't".  on the other hand, such a
thorough preparation will contradict the purpose of the final exam (see more
on it below).  thus, the proper answer is to say that the homework problems
will most likely be on the exam and give problems that bear no resemblance.
besides achieving the purposes of the final, it will also give one more
chance to discuss probability theory and its wrong interpretation by lay
students.

research topics 11-13: think of 3 more pairs of answers to the question
above and justify the correct answer of each pair.


part 7 (final):
case study #4: final exam as reflection
as it was said elsewhere, "the time has come ..."  question #10: where and
by whom was it said (partly in verses)?  everything comes to its end,
including teaching, courses, and this volume of the manual.  but before
that, one gets to listen and to read the meek, disgusting, and very
appalling responses to the teacher's brilliant, charming, and highly
enlightening (in many senses) speech a semester long.  what else can be
worse but seeing an elephant bearing a mouse (so to speak)?  a restless job
that took all your efforts, a toil, a magnificent piece of creation brought
into the dull universe resulting in what?  question #11:  what does it
result in?  to partially cope with the loss incurred, one has to turn this
quasi-drama 3 hours long into a half-decent comedy.  finally, time has come
to switch roles and enjoy the one-spectator show that needs to be carefully
staged first.

first stage: topics and problems to give on the exam.
here we can ask a dual (see introduction to duality theory in vol. 9 of the
manual) of the  corresponding question on homeworks.  what to give on the
exam?  accordingly, the answer will be dual as well.  something that was not
given as a homework.  what's the difference between a big mouse and a small
mouse?  the smaller the mouse, the less disgusting it is (recall rats and
mice).  thus, providing the students with harder problems the teacher
actually makes their output nicer to look (and, along the way, shorter to
read).  chances are that the student would not find anything at all to say
on the subject.  it will then be a good illustration to the well-known
principle that a good mouse is a non-existing one.

research topics 14-16: what else should be taken into account when preparing
to the exam?

second stage: exam itself.
is not it an appropriate time to show your good attitude towards the
students, to show that you can also be stupid and obtuse just like them?
after all, you have not been given an opportunity to ask them what is
written here and there, what is meant by that, and say a few times "i don't
see it".  they would certainly like to take this opportunity.  stop them a
few times during their writing, with inquiring look and amazed expression on
the face.  ask some clarifying questions, and let them be creative in
answering them at least once during the whole course.

it may be helpful to join a few students into a lively discussion group to
relieve their sufferings.  accompanied by an appropriate amount of food and
drinks (only for you, of course.  did they ever bother bring some for you
when you were exhausting yourself days long?) it may be compared with a good
movie or even an interactive tv show.  a well planned exam is as pleasant to
listen to and watch as a beehive full of bees buzzing and sneaking in and
out and honey.  questions #12-13: what did i mean by bees and honey (there
are several possible answers) and why did i not put a single comma in the
last sentence?

a sound end of the exam will not be left unnoticed and unappreciated by the
performers - it's as necessary as the applauds for dancers and singers.  in
general, a small steam train whistle will suffice, but, of course, it
depends. research topics 17-20: elaborate on the process of ending the exam.

third stage: life after exam.
when the show is over and all the performers have left, there must be
somebody to clean up the mess they had created.  take a random guess who it
is, and you're surely right.  there are two ways to proceed - the first one,
not leading to anything but cleanliness, would be to throw everything away
as useless trash.  the only problem is that it may be found (discovered) by
somebody (i mean the trash, which does not ever burn, according to m.a.
bulgakov, not the fact of its throwing away).

so, the only way out is to convert it to numbers first, extracting the
essential part, and recycle  afterwards.  question #14: we all know how to
recycle paper and glass, but how do you recycle bits, bytes, and files?
here we'll make use of the way the questions for the exams were prepared.
earlier observations would allow the astute reader to notice that the amount
of written material should be inversely proportional to the degree of not
knowing the subject.  thus, simple calculation of the number of symbols
(counting subscripts and superscripts) will result in precise and accurate
estimate of the value of this or that work.  it can be done by a hand-bought
scanner or by a teaching  assistant.  (last) question #15: what else are
teaching assistants good for?

the end.