Respect for the teacher or “Professor, and where is your repository on GitHub?”

The last few years of teaching have given me an idea of ​​what my students know and that they are ready to learn about programming. As a result, I adjusted my curricula a bit. The teacher must be flexible.

Some of my students are geeks. They already have quite a lot of programming experience, sometimes even in such exotic languages ​​as Clojure. I hope that their time spent on my classes will be just as useful as for less experienced students. Even advanced students usually do not know much about building complex software systems.
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After an interesting conversation with one of these students, I thought about the role of trust between the teacher and the student. The student has to believe that his professor knows enough to teach him. Most students really believe in it, based on the authority of the university or the degree of lecturer. It makes the work of the teacher a little easier, yes :). If the teacher is forced to before each lesson, for each individual student to prove their qualifications and the right to teach the subject - things will go much slower.

Once the course has been started, every interaction between the professor and the student either strengthens the initial trust or destroys it. This is one of the most important parts of the educational process and, unfortunately, this is not what many teachers are focused on.

Working with advanced students is a challenge, especially if less experienced students are also present in the classroom. Most of what is learned in the lessons, as about new information, is the current (or even already passed) level of stronger students. Telling some basic thing, the teacher strengthens his confidence among ordinary students, but at the same time, with the same words , he diminishes his authority among experienced ones.

" Why should I listen to a professor who talks about the architecture of OOP applications if I have already written dozens of classes and thousands of lines of code? Can this person teach me something that I don’t know? Is he professional enough? "

This is a fair question. It is very important to gain the trust of a strong part of the students. For me, when I was a student, it was not a problem. I studied well and knew a lot - but I believed the experience of my professor. It was easy for me, it seemed something natural. But not all students agree with this position.

Over the years of teaching, I have put a lot of effort into gaining this trust. Without it, I would not have had a chance to teach strong students something new, thereby making them even stronger.

Fortunately, we now live in a world that provides many interesting tools and opportunities. In addition to teaching, I can do my own projects and I really like it when students ask me: “Professor, what do you work on in your free time?”. I am waiting for the day when among students it will become the norm to approach the teacher and ask “Where is your repository on GitHub?”. The answer to this simple question will enable the teacher to earn the trust of the most demanding students. Of course, if the teacher really deserves it.