In his third lecture on the Steipler for Torah in Motion, professor Marc B. Shapiro says: This semester [with T.I.M.] especially I have very learned people.”
“Sitting at the University of Scranton with typical American students, this [Talmudic teaching that you learn the most from your students] never applied to me. I never learn anything [about Jewish subjects] from my students. How could I learn anything? They don’t know anything.”
Marc emails: “Hi, I am happy to see that you are providing my “best lines”, so to speak. By the way, I clarified this point in a later lecture. I meant that I don’t learn anything about Jewish subjects, which is the context of the talmudic passage (and with my TIM students I learn Jewish things from them, which is why I enjoy it so much). With the Scranton students every semester I do learn an important thing or two. If I didn’t teaching wouldn’t be very exciting.”
My father taught college in Australia and in America. He said Americans students were generally terrible. He had to halve his homework load and assignments for them.
