[endtime]

No, they wouldn't. They might be more accessible, even more effective, but they wouldn't be more credible.

In any case, I'd appreciate knowing specifically which parts you thought were condescending, since I wasn't trying to be, and it's not obvious to me on a reread where I was. Would you still have found them condescending if I hadn't said "Stanford"?

[jacobolus]

The condescending part is the “if I'm a grad student and I can read proof problem sets then all you lazy teachers should just suck it up, and if you say teaching is hard then you don’t know what you’re talking about” part (but also the part about how most teachers are shit). Your tone made you sound (a) incapable of empathy, (b) self-entitled, (c) both uninformed and uninterested in learning what people’s views are based on their own first-hand experience. All of these erode your credibility, and make holding a conversation with you unpleasant. (Notice that you also just did the same thing to me: I’m telling you straight up that your tone eroded your credibility in my eyes and you are telling me that I’m wrong.)

Anyway, I have no personal gripe and am not trying to tear you down; consider this just a friendly reminder that a little humility and open-mindedness goes a long way, especially when you’re talking about an issue about which it’s clear your analysis is coming from outside and is mainly anecdotal, and the guy you were talking to is an expert speaking from first-hand experience.

* * *

For what it’s worth, on the actual subject at hand, the vast majority of my teachers (in public schools in a mostly middle-class/upper-middle-class suburb at the edge of Los Angeles county) from elementary school through high school were frankly quite excellent, and worked their asses off for their students, easily spending 60 or 70 hours a week on school-related activity.