For the next month or so I am still a teacher. Though it is a matter of debate exactly what my teacher role is as specified in this school pertaining to myself as a JET Programme participant, I think the word 'teacher' is not too presumptuous for now. Most of us can recall a good teacher we had during our school days and I also think most would agree that at least a part of why we classify these people we have in mind as good teachers is that we actually learned from them. We can also recall the bad teachers. It is not an easy thing to pass on knowledge and not everyone is comfortable doing it. I freely admit I am still learning this process but strive to do my best.

When I was in university I studied Theoretical Physics for 4 long years. I had good lecturers and bad ones, but the difference between these individuals and teachers in school, is that no one seemed willing to stand up and be counted as saying 'He is a bad teacher', if the case was so. An example is a man who taught a course to my class and I about something to do with Electricity & Magnetism. Now before taking this course I was well aware of this particular lecturers reputation; he is a genius, brings in so much money to the university, a brilliant man. I know he was all these things, but one thing I can say with confidence that he is not is, he is not a good teacher. In fact, he is not even an average teacher, this man was a terrible teacher. You see, things were so easy for him in this area that he couldn't seem to fathom why other failed to grasp these 'simple' concepts. It was a theoretical class and he frequently would jump forward 2,3,4 or more steps in a calculation, stating simply that they were 'self evident'. They weren't to me or the poor souls either side of me who I questioned about them. This man was a great physicist but a lousy lecturer.

One of the 20th Century's greatest physicists is Richard Feynman. He is a Noble Prize recipient and well known to the majority of physics university students as, in some sense at least, he literally wrote the book about undergrad physics. However, in my opinion, the reason he is so highly regarded is that he could impart this knowledge on the lay person. He was a fantastic teacher and can
explain such complicated concepts succinctly with grace and ease. Don't believe me? Check him out for yourself:

Kfh