This appetite is what is encouraging me to leave the university world for ever. My expereince with forums is positive. Indeed you find people who thirst after knowledge.
If it is true that a teacher is a person who has a message in his/her life, then it is also true that this teacher must seek those audience who are interested in taking this message.
What happens is that a teacher's competence is badly affected when the audience are careless. Many teachers, including myself, claim to have done the impossible to attract students. In most cases we succeeded, but this success was at the expense of our time that could have been used more fruitfully.
Let me tell you this anecdote that happened to me:
In 1999, the director of the language centre at the University of Jordan decided to launch a very good project. He thought why don't we recruit senior students at the English department in a project through which weak students can benefit? Senior students in this project would teach those students who are weak.
Prof. Majdoubah, the director, assigned to me the job of coordinating the whole matter.
Accordingly, I made an annoucnment for weak students to register in the courses, and then printed our the names of those students and posted the announcment on the door of the center.
One day, a student came to me and said:
"What happened to my application to join the course?
I said: "We announced the names"
"Where is the announcment"
"It is posted on the door"
"Where is the door"!!!!!
So, a student who did not care even to bother himself to know where the "door" from which he entered the centre, is, cannot be expected to love to learn.
This is however, I admit, is not a general rule. In another university, students were weak but frankly they had a very big apetite to learn.
At any rate, and to sum up, if a teacher believes that a message must be passed on to the next generation, it is very important for him/her to decide on the right audience who can safeguard this message.
