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Posts Tagged ‘Performance’

AI Is Coming: When Work No Longer Matters

Posted in Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 9, 2026| Leave a Comment »

I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labour, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours.  But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers.
    ––     Nikola Tesla
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Click here (9 January) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Why We Have So Few Personal Favorites

Posted in Education, Philosophy, Quotes, Science and Learning, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance.  In teaching we rely on the ‘naturals’, the ones who somehow know how to teach.
    —     Peter Drucker
[One of the few times I don’t agree with Drucker…   I believe we rely on ‘willing to’ rather than ‘naturals’ to become teachers and then hope most rise to a level of competence and performance.
First, I’m not convinced “average” people are capable of being competent teachers.  I don’t think the ability to teach academic subjects is a skill the average person has.  I do believe that everyone can teach “some” things – just not academic topics, and certainly not at all levels.
Second, I believe “tools” make most people better at “some” things, but do not necessarily make average people competent or able to perform in academic areas.  I’m not convinced tools necessarily make a below-average (whatever that is) person average (whatever that is);  just better than they might have been otherwise.
Third, I’m not convinced we have adequate testing methodologies to rate an academic teacher’s competence and / or performance.  Students are living beings and not subject to controlled experiments as inputs or as outputs.  The “best” we can do is use statistics to estimate student competence / performance under very limited circumstances and, therefore, the results of the comparisons may or may not be widely applicable across wider groups in society.  Even the world’s greatest high school math teacher may not be good (or average) in a grammar school or at a university, let alone at another high school or in other subjects.
Finally, we believe we can use standardized tests to measure the students performance and, therefore, “measure / determine” a teacher’s competence.  This is an assumption which may or may not be valid.
In any case, my understanding is that social / economic banding is the most common important factor for economic progress / success.  This banding has very little to do with an individual teacher’s ability or a student’s performance.
The same teacher can teach multiple siblings at the same school and still end up with a wide variance of sibling performance success.     —    kmab]
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Click here (28 October) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

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Already In That State

Posted in Music, Philosophy, Quotes, tagged , , , , , , , on August 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »

When people ask me how they should approach performance, I always tell them the professional musician should aspire to the state of the beginner.
    —     Yo-Yo Ma
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Click here (20 August) to see the posts of prior years.  I started this blog in late 2009.  Daily posting began in late January 2011.  Not all of the days in the early years (2009-2010) will have posts.

Read Full Post »

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