One

Two

Three

]]> http://www.ariadacapo.net/blog/from-the-window-of-my-previous-appartment/feed/ 0 http://www.ariadacapo.net/blog/thoughts-about-teaching/ http://www.ariadacapo.net/blog/thoughts-about-teaching/#comments Tue, 19 Feb 2013 09:12:53 +0000 ariadacapo http://www.ariadacapo.net/?p=1190 Things you should probably find out by yourself, rather than read in a blog, if you aspire to be a teacher:

• All that you work on with your students is gone after two years – all of your files lost, all the paper recycled. The fraction of a percent that may remain in the students’ minds after that time, however, is entirely in your hands.
• There is no consensus on the purpose of education. Ultimately however, whether your focus is on intellectual stimulation, professional skills, or acquisition of information, your work goes towards defining the students’ role in society, and you act as a filter.
• We are no more equal in intellectual terms than we are in physical terms. Beyond the student’s background and motivation, a great and cruel share of his/her success is defined by sheer intellectual brainpower.
• The nature of teaching is peer pressure. The real value added by the teacher is the process that keeps the student focused. There is nothing you bring that your students couldn’t learn by themselves. “Teacher” is just a pompous word for “coach”.
• Grades are meaningless and useful. They are meaningless for very apparent reasons. They are useful in that they serve as a metric for the student’s time budgeting. If that is not tormenting, you likely are getting one of those characteristics wrong.
• The balance of power between students and teacher is overwhelmingly and unhealthily tipped towards the teacher. Signs that you are doing a good job are subtle; the difference made is important but it makes for weak signals in class. Lower your standards and mostly nothing will happen.
• Intellectual stimulation is addictive. Intellectual intercourse is irreparably addictive.
• Blackboard chalk gets into everything.

In 2012 I have taken a break from learning more about ever less, and have temporarily learned a little about much. But 2013 might not see any less obscure or convolute posts written here.

Some of that EXIF information, such as the date and time the photo was taken, is very useful. Some of it is only interesting to photography enthusiasts: it gives insight into the camera’s performance and the photographer’s adroitness and artistic decisions. A large bunch of the EXIF information, such as the camera distance to the focus point or how exactly the camera reacted to the software’s orders, is entirely useless. And some of that EXIF information is outright harmful.

I cannot see a good reason, indeed, for embedding the camera serial number(!) or mysterious binary blobs of information within the photo file. As the EFF explains very well, a great deal of privacy is given away when digital fingerprints are left on the photos that we share. This is especially true today when the largest companies on the Internet feast on our private information, basing their business model on tracking and reading through our lives and thoughts.

Things needn’t be this way. On a Linux system (for example, Ubuntu), erasing all EXIF data from a large batch of photos is as easy as typing:

exiv2 rm *.JPG

This, however, removes all the useful and potentially interesting information. I wrote a little script called JASESS which reads out the interesting EXIF tags, erases everything, and then puts this selected information back into the file. An EXIF sanitization of sorts.

Under any Linux distribution the script is run as follows:

1. Download the little text file
2. Make it executable (a right click → properties → permissions)
3. Double-click on it in the same folder as your photos.

Running the script can also be made as easy as right click within your file browser, or typing a single letter in your shell prompt.

I strongly encourage anyone to at least briefly read through the script. I made great efforts to comment it extensively, so it may be understood and customized by a beginner. Naturally, feedback is always welcome.

The e-mails I receive always make for a difficult reply, since they are phrased as “invitations” and use terms such as “my professional network”. One can always opt out of a commercial offer, but turning down a personal invitation is always a delicate social operation. I hope here to provide an explanation that hopefully won’t offend those who send me these e-mails.

Despite the careful wording and the good intent of the sender, they are commercial offers. LinkedIn makes its money by reselling the information entered into its database by members. A quick scan of their terms of service yields

[…] You grant LinkedIn a[n] irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited […] right to us to […] use and commercialize […] any information […] you submit to LinkedIn.

This is among a thick mix (a cloud?) of clauses all unnecessarily transferring control and rights in a single direction, as is often the case with services where you pay nothing yet are made to feel like you are the customer.

I am lucky today to not strongly need to find new professional relations. The balance is therefore unequivocally towards opting out. In other words, I can afford today to not have a company sell “the list of Olivier’s colleagues in 2009” to the highest bidder next year. It’s like not being on Facebook: it sounds like quite a good deal.