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Comment by mcguire | Hacker News Reader

"Do the best universities have best teaching technique, or are they best because they pick brightest students and they contribute nothing special?"

They tend to attract the best teachers. And by "teachers" I do mean the best researchers in the given field. Which in turn attracts the brightest students.

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The best researchers are rarely the best teachers

They won’t be stumped by a question from a smart undergrad. The best teachers might fail to make it a teachable moment.

Why would I need a world class researcher for e.g. linear algebra? Lots of students struggle with it because of bad teaching, not because it's difficult to understand.

Who would you rather be taught by, someone who spends the rest of the week using what you are being taught, or someone interested in something else (at best, teaching itself, at worst, doing anything else)?

I might suspect bad linear algebra teaching is caused by a lack of interest in linear algebra by the teacher.

Having seen world-class researchers up close, and having experienced their teaching first-hand over many years, I don't believe that being one is any guarantee of also being the other.

Oh I didn't say they'd be good at the board.

You can’t use teacher as a synonym for researcher, they’re two completely different things.

Not in my experience.

Good researchers are not necessarily good teachers. Good teachers are not necessarily good researchers. But the best teachers in my experience are fiercely interested in their subjects, which they share with the best teachers.

Everybody likes sharing their interests, right?

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