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by bick_nyers 1207 days ago
I like to just go along with it, and get them to teach me. Accept the idea that they are the expert, and place them into a teacher position. If you disagree with a statement being made, don't be adversarial, steelman their arguments and try get them to explain to you why they are making the statement they are making. Either you ignite their passion, or they avoid you because you are weirdly too enthusiastic about a mechanism they may have been using to overpower you.

I had an math professor (NOT the one I am referencing in another comment) that was ego-centric and would often respond to my incessant questioning with demoralizing (and sometimes flat out rude) responses. I just acted completely oblivious to the social faux pas and his avoidance/adversarial tendencies eventually turned into a much more productive relationship. I received the only A in the class (he publicly posted everyone's grades).
1 comments
skylanh 1207 days ago
That's a fair point, and I think you're giving a good example of a certain context of established-expert wrt beginner and how to treat it.

FWIW, I had a friend indicate that because (tenured?) teaching positions are such high demand, that the available candidates can be significantly high caliber. So that might have played into why the math professor was adversarial initially.

The area I've found the depress-to-impress used was usually in peer contexts and didn't have any teachable outcomes, unfortunately. They're regurgitating material that they have better familiarity with, but probably unable to ad-lib off their "beat path".

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bick_nyers 1207 days ago
That makes sense. I think this specific professor also wanted to do research and perhaps disliked teaching, but was required to do it. I could be misinterpreting though.

With the peers thing I just view it as we all have our pathologies, and some people just feel the need to be perceived as smart (usually some kind of insecurity). Sometimes it can just be too much though and you can get the feeling that you are walking on eggshells around them, perhaps not to trigger a judgement of you on their part.

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