
One of my favorite professors in college was a self-confessed liar - yason
http://www.zenmoments.org/my-favorite-liar/
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swombat
Excellent, excellent. Could this be applied on a wider scale, or would the
loss of novelty dull the effect on students?

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tierack
It seems like it would only work for subjects where students have the capacity
to figure out errors on their own. It would be disastrous in a foreign
language class if you were told the word for "mother" was "banana".

As I've mentioned in another discussion, I once had a math professor who would
sneak in impossible problems into the homework (e.g. prove the continuum
hypothesis). It worked very well to get us to spend countless hours just
trying things out, and eventually to spur us to prove decidability of the
problems, all of which made us much better. But I imagine it would get old
fast if every class I took did something similar.

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icefox
When I was learning Norwegian that happened to me. Every weeks lesson had new
words, but we were not told what they meant and we were supposed to figure out
them on our own. As you would expect I translated and memorized a few wrong
every week. This had a snowball effect of making the class harder and harder
as I tried to learn new words and unlearn the words/rules I previously
memorized incorrectly.

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SlyShy
It's interesting that you feel that way. I've taken two foreign languages at
the university level, and they were both taught in an "immersion" style manner
(that is to say, all the instruction was in the native language) and have
found it beneficial rather than harmful. But perhaps I reach for a dictionary
more often than you did.

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oujheush
I'm guessing the "figure them out on their own" precluded using a dictionary?
Otherwise you're right, a dictionary should solve the problem.

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mkyc
For those, like me, wondering why this sounds eerily familiar:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124386>

<http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/02/my-favorite-lia.html>

It's great to see it posted again - though I do prefer that original
overcoming bias version. I can only speculate as to why it received only 30
points two years ago. The key differences seem to be a) the linkbait title, b)
the bolding of random sections within the post itself (which I found made it
uglier to read) and c) the picture at the top of the post. Of course there's
also d) we had fewer people.

I don't know what it is, and maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems posts like this
tend to attract a lot of low-signal comments. Perhaps this can be used to our
advantage: every few weeks, pg could let a few really linkbaity and low-grade
posts past the filters. Pictures of cats, or something equally fun but inane.
Something from the top of Digg. Everyone who upvoted such a post would have
their voting rights suspended. Would this help or harm the quality of posts
here?

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swombat
Presentation is an important component in blogging as in other forms of
presentation.

The arrangement of whitespace in the original post made it harder to read. The
intro line in the second version is far better than the nondescript blurb in
the overcomingbias version. The picture is more appealing, and underlines the
tagline. All of these things conspire to ensure that instead of 1 out of 10
people actually reading the post, perhaps 1 in 3 read it.

The lesson: if you're going to publish great blog posts, make sure they're
published in a great format that also drags the reader in.

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ojbyrne
The defining characteristic of this story is not the lying part, but
professors who deviate from strict curriculum and think about how best to make
their students think. My particular canonical example - Literature and
Criticism Seminar (An English course) - after 14 weeks of reading passages of
poetry and prose and discussing them in class, our final exam was a wine-
tasting exam. An opportunity to take the skills we had learned and apply them
to a different domain, and have some fun.

The class was very small (8 people) so it was easy for the professor to do
this and not have to worry about evaluation issues.

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quantumhobbit
Sounds like a great teacher. I had a prof who was a bit more
sadistic/incompetent about this. He would incorporate a falsehood into his
lectures, not always and not always just one. When challenged he would admit
it but if no one caught the mistake he would let us live on in ignorance. This
was a fluid dynamics course so you could frequently find the "lie" by
carefully going over the algebra in his derivations. I'm pretty sure this was
just a clever ploy to conceal the fact that once in a while he did, in fact,
make mistakes.

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yummyfajitas
I don't even try to conceal the fact that I make mistakes. I tell my students
that I'll sometimes lie and often screw up, and that they shouldn't trust me.

Sadly, they rarely listen. I'm told that 95% of what I say is right, and it's
not worth the effort to figure out what falls into the remaining 5%.

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josephkern
I'm going to steal this for the ethics class I teach. Heh heh heh.

Of course, I'm still trying to develop a grading curve based on game theory
and economics. Given there are only enough points available for 10% of you to
get A's, most of you will get B's, and some of you will get C's. OR all of you
can work together to get B+'s.

This probably wouldn't work. BUT I think it has possibilities ... Any ideas?

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shaddi
There is a professor at my university who is known for doing something like
this. He says for every exam that if /no one/ writes anything on the exam,
everyone in the class will get an A on the exam. But, if one person writes
anything on the exam, then he will grade all the exams normally.

Apparently he's never had an entire class leave all their exams blank.

~~~
antipaganda
Hehehe. Prisoner's Dilemma, writ large.

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skolor
Simple things like this seem to be the most effective. This is particularly
interesting, because it forces students to check what they (as a class) find
most difficult, in order to find what they missed.

From my experience, there seem to be two classes of professors, those that
interact with the class, and those that don't. It is relatively easy for a
professor to interact with and engage the class when the class is small, in
the 20-30 student range. Personally, I don't care much for these classes
because when the professor interacts with the class, all of the interaction
becomes dominated by one or two students. Then there are the really good
professors who teach a lecture-sized class, but still engage the students in
the learning process. They have 50-100 students (or more), but still manage to
get the students involved with learning. I have only had one professor do this
particularly well, and I enjoyed his class far more than any of my others at
the time. The interaction dynamic is very different in a class this sized. One
or two students can't dominate the professor's attention, it just isn't
possible.

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btilly
_One or two students can't dominate the professor's attention, it just isn't
possible._

You've clearly never seen me in a classroom setting. :-P

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d0m
What a great strategy to help students focus -- and wow for the most difficult
part.

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xenophanes
He claims to have learned that

> "Experts" can be wrong

While I agree with this, and enjoyed the story, the story does not make this
particular point well. In the story, the lecturer is basically perfect.

The expert lecturer remained fully in control of the situation at all times,
had the students doing what he wanted, and was never wrong by accident.

In general, imperfect experts can be wrong by accident, can lose control of
situations, etc... It's common, but the linked story isn't an example of an
expert going wrong.

~~~
tvon
Except his point isn't what you say it is. You quote only:

> "Experts" can be wrong

His point in its entirety is:

> “Experts” can be wrong, and say things that sound right – _so build a habit
> of evaluating new information and check it against things you already accept
> as fact_.

Emphasis mine.

~~~
xenophanes
Again, while that's a good lesson, the story doesn't teach it. The story only
gives an example of evaluating new information when you're told it will
contain a lie.

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dasil003
You're nitpicking. Humans (and all animals) operate by constructing mental
approximations and generalizations. This does in fact teach students not to
trust authority.

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xenophanes
I think what would teach not to trust authority is an explanation of why it's
bad to trust authority. The story does not contain such an explanation.

Secondarily, I think an example where people trusted authority and got burned
would work. The story doesn't contain such an example.

Thirdly, one could have an example where people refused to trust authority and
got good results. The story doesn't have that either.

What it does contain is students who did what their teacher wanted and got
good results by going along with the authority's lessons.

~~~
driax
I agree that the story does not explain WHY it is bad to trust authority. But
it tells the story of HOW the author have learn to mistrust authority.

It's one thing to know that you shouldn't trust authority, it's another thing
to have practiced it. And this is exactly what the professor teaches: giving
the students the tools and practice of constant skepticism toward even
qualified authority.

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joblessjunkie
"...an arousing melange of exasperated groans..."

I'm pretty sure the author meant "rousing," but I think I prefer this more
titillating version.

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riobard
This will be off topic, but ... what if he makes _two_ lies in a class? :D

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ghshephard
I'm surprised that nobody has pointed out yet(that I could find) The lie in
that last lecture was: "Each of you has one falsehood in your lecture notes. "

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chrischen
It seems it would also be a great way to keep students from mindlessly
repeating whatever they read or are taught.

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benmathes
Do we really need to repost this story every few months?

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easyfrag
First I've seen it and I've been here almost 2 years, the value of a community
like HN is the commentary on the links as much as the links themselves.

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tjstankus
I think President Bush used this technique as well.

(Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

~~~
antipaganda
He uses the more interesting "One thing in every one of my speeches will be
true" technique. Makes for entertaining press conferences.

