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Comment by jordanpg | Hacker News Reader

Right, but there is another side to this coin. There are good questions, and then there are questions that evince/exhibit:

* basic reading comprehension issues

* trivial matters that could have been looked up in an obvious reference

* completely unrelated tangents, asked out of idle curiosity

* questions asked solely to demonstrate "participation" (nothing wrecks a classroom like a "participation" grade)

In my experience, these comprise the bulk of questions that are asked in non-STEM university and graduate settings.

I don't call these questions stupid, but they are a waste of time, do not move the ball down the field at all, and discourage self-learning.

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Just out of curiosity, where does your experience with "non-STEM university and grad settings" come from that you are judging and contrasting it so harshly with STEM?

Seems like you've been in higher level STEM settings and your experience outside of that has been low level electives, you've had limited and unusually poor samples, or you're just speaking out of bias for (presumably) your own path in life.

I don't think people who are not "STEM" are generally going around navigating the world and school like uninformed, idiot freshman who don't know how to participate in their own education... At least not any more then people in STEM are ;-)

Not him, but I used to sign up to various courses while coursera was starting and free. Which means courses from American universities. Non-STEM were more likely to mandate questions if you want good grade. It was a fight to convince teachers that it is bad idea in online setting at first. They were also more likely to try to force or encourage discussion between students even when questions were not mandatory.

So I think that cultures are much different in that regard. A lot of it makes sense give topics that were taught. It is not that non-stem was inferior, it is that different topics have different pedagogy.

But, if students get points for asking question often enough, they will be trained to ask any question that cross their mind. They will be used to actively desperately look for any question to ask cause they are used to need that point.

Agreed, provided one is not so aggressive at preventing the questions you list that you effectively chill the environment for questions out of fear subsequent questions are “the bad ones”.

That for sure is a much worse outcome than the occasional “really?” kind of question. Some simple nudges to colleagues as checks (did you do the reading? Did you try to answer it yourself first?) before asking questions to keep things productive, for example, might be a good starting point rather than a Potentially more hostile approach that could frustrate well-meaning questioners.

> basic reading comprehension issues

The student was assigned reading material beyond their level. They will need mentoring, which a good teacher (i.e. senior developer) is well equipped to provide and should be willing[1] to provide. The teacher should also ensure that no other student is in the same situation but is hiding it due to risk of the social stigma.

> trivial matters that could have been looked up in an obvious reference

Student is not aware of resources available to them or does not yet have this habit. Provide them with pointers to resources, or engage them in habit-forming exercises for looking up references[1].

> completely unrelated tangents, asked out of idle curiosity

Idle curiosity is the best attribute (correction: skill) you can ask for in a student (any developer). Stifling it will cause a drop in creative thinking and therefore damage problem solving skills.

An unrelated tangent is unrelated only if the teacher (senior developer) does not possess the skills necessary to relate the question back to the topic at hand. Something made the student think of the so-called tangent. In such occurrences, explore[1] the tangent and how it may possibly relate to the topic at hand, with the help of the student, as a learning opportunity (an opportunity for the teacher, rather than the student, to learn).

> questions asked solely to demonstrate "participation" (nothing wrecks a classroom like a "participation" grade)

If a student participates just to demonstrate participation, this is usually because the class dynamics (work politics) are skewed against the student (damaging their self-esteem), or the rewards for good performance are not distributed evenly -on merit.

When you think a student is participating just for show, assume good faith. That is, assume that the student is genuinely interested and explore the idea together[1] with the student. If it turns out that the student was actually interested, you just prevented a misunderstanding caused by your own burn out. If they were participating just for show, you just helped them hone in on their skills and provided guidance on how to better participate in class (meeting/workplace).

[1] If you are not willing to do this, stop teaching (read: either stop hiring non-senior developers or quit). Your role in the university (read: workplace) as an instructor (read: senior developer) is not only to manage and produce research (read: projects and deliverables) but also to develop your students' (read: non-senior developers') skills. Earn your salary.

The student arrived late, fumbled with his phone the first 20 minutes, then started talking with his neighbor about something apparently very funny and now - when assignments are handed out - starts asking to explain everything again.

> The student arrived late, fumbled with his phone the first 20 minutes, then started talking with his neighbor about something apparently very funny

You are not the best at maintaining discipline ;) If this is happening with a lot of your students, seek out guidance from the more experienced teachers in your department that you know are liked/loved/adored by students or the cohort. (It helps if you attend their classes to observe their approach and the class dynamics.)

Somehow engage the student in the first 5 minutes of them looking at their phone. (Beware, they may have had an emergency before the class.) If you let them be on their phone for 20 minutes straight, the student knows that you don't care about their presence in the class. Or, worse, they now think you are one of those teachers who don't care about all or a subset of the students.

> when assignments are handed out - starts asking to explain everything again

This happens much more often than you'd think. Having the instructions clearly laid out in the assignment sheet usually helps. The quality of education they received prior to college (before your company) is usually worse than that they receive in college, leaving them confused starting with 100-level classes (and their confusion gets worse and more complicated as they advance).

> explain everything again

If, by this, you meant everything you talked about in class, ask the student to come to your office hours. You may have to accommodate their schedule, which usually is not too difficult though inconvenient.

Think of the teacher as the management. If the student (employee) fails (is fired) or drops out (quits), it is usually because of the teacher (management).

> You are not the best at maintaining discipline ;)

You sound like a non-parent trying to tell a parent how to be a parent.

> Somehow engage the student in the first 5 minutes of them looking at their phone. (Beware, they may have had an emergency before the class.) If you let them be on their phone for 20 minutes straight

There is 120 of us. Why the hell should 119 of us wait till teacher engage with the one person who is fiddling phone?

And most late arrivals are not due to emergency.

This mindset is toxic. Obviously teachers and managers wield some power to influence the success of those beneath them and have some responsibility for it, but they do not wield total power and should not bear total responsibility. In the end, some people have personal failings that you cannot fix, and that is on them, not on you.

But it's not just that this attitude is unfair on the teacher/manager, it's that it's unfair on the other people they're responsible for. As a teacher or manager, you have finite time to devote to multiple people. If you make it a matter of policy that you will take the time to answer any question, no matter how unnecessary, and make no attempt to discourage avoidable questions, then you are in effect deciding that you will devote the majority of your time to the laziest, most selfish individual you're responsible for, while spending zero to little time on people who are too meek to make demands on the time of their constantly-busy mentor. There's nothing noble about what you're proposing here; it's an abdication of the responsibilities you have as a manager or teacher.

> You are not the best at maintaining discipline

Adults are expected to maintain discipline on their own.

> Idle curiosity is the best attribute (correction: skill) you can ask for in a student (any developer). Stifling it will cause a drop in creative thinking and therefore damage problem solving skills.

And meanwhile the rest of us is waiting twiddling fingers, because someone could not google that tangent or asked question anyone who is paying attention could answer.

This does not annoy just teacher. It is annoying students who were paying attention and were there whole time way more.

> If a student participates just to demonstrate participation, this is usually because the class dynamics (work politics) are skewed against the student (damaging their self-esteem), or the rewards for good performance are not distributed evenly -on merit.

When you have one-two people out of over 100 asking such questions all the time in multiple unrelated classes, the issue is not all of us or all those teachers.

> If they were participating just for show, you just helped them hone in on their skills and provided guidance on how to better participate in class (meeting/workplace).

Please, please, please, don't teach students to make meetings longer by asking tangents. That is for after meeting when those not interested can leave. Meeting moderation is literally about ability to keep discussion on point.

Man, my favorite ("favorite") is the "I don't actually have a question, I just want to make sure everyone sees that I think I know something by rambling about it semi-incoherently and then trying to turn one of those run-on sentences into a question halfway through it."

I find this more in public talks than in classrooms, but yeah, that guy is always out there somewhere.

In my experience, this happened just as much in STEM classes, if not more.

“non-STEM” — care to be more vague?

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