How To Make Education Fun

If you've grown up like me in the 90s in India, you'd perhaps agree that education wasn't really fun. Sure there have been teachers we've all respected and they have been great in their own way.. but really, has it been "fun"?

I'm only mentioning this because I find that some profs here at Oxford go to great lengths to make things fun. And that really makes me wonder why more teachers didn't do it when I was growing up, why it was always about just the textbooks.

The example I have today is that of a course called Decision Science. It's essentially a course about statistics and I have to say I've been lucky to have some amazing teachers in this subject (which can sometimes be very boring). Prof Birbal oh-that-means-the-lawyer-is-a-lady Singh at BITS Pilani was just amazing and now I have Prof. James Taylor going through the routine at Oxford.

The highlight of his classes (at least for me) have been these little quotes that he has added to each powerpoint slide. Actually, there are two professors teaching the course and I don't know whether the slides are shared, so perhaps Prof. Dolores Ramero Moralez should get some credit as well.

Anyways, some of those quotes are below.. take a look, they're very enjoyable.

On Description of Statistics:
Don't set too much store on statistics,' said the quick-witted salesman. 'After all, statistics prove that most people have more than the average number of legs.' -- New Scientist

On Statistics of Stock Portfolios:
If you bet on a horse, that's gambling. If you bet you can make three spades, that's entertainment. If you bet cotton will grow up three points, that's business. See the difference. -- Blackie Sherrod

On Distribution for Supermarket Customer Expenditure:
The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. -- Confessions of an Advertising Man, Ogilvy (1963)

On Summary of Sampling:
Beauty is the first test: there is no place in the world for ugly mathematics -- A Mathematician's Apology, Harding, 1940

On Model Building Methodology:
Thou this be madness, yet there is method in't. -- Hamlet, Shakespeare (1601)

On Model Comparison:
A: How is your wife? B: Compared to what?

On Forecasting and Confidence Intervals:
If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me. -- William Shakespeare

We're only half through the term and this is only a random selection. I'm sure there are more to come. Also, to avoid getting beaten up by my fellow MBAs, I have to mention Prof. Tomo Suzuki (Financial Reporting) and Prof. Mungo Wilson (Managerial Economics) in the fun context as well. And although I'm not taught Strategy by Prof. Thomas Powell, I've heard he's pretty good too. Maybe I'll talk about them in some of my later posts.