TITLE: Sometimes, The Truth Is Boring
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 30, 2014  4:29 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
MacKenzie Bezos, in
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/review/R2I0T26SV0ELPP">
   her Amazon review</A>
of <EM>The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of
Amazon</EM>, writes:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 One of the biggest challenges in non-fiction writing
 is the risk that a truthfully balanced narration of
 the facts will be boring, and this presents an author
 with some difficult choices.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Teachers face these choices all the time, too.  Whenever
I teach a course, I want to help my students be excited
about the ideas and tools that we are studying.  I like
to tell stories that entertain as well as illuminate.
But not every moment of learning a new programming
language, or a new programming style, or a set of
mathematical ideas, is going to have my students on the
edges of their seats.

The best I can hope for is that the exciting parts of
the course will give us the momentum we need to make it
through the more boring parts.  A big part of education
is learning that the best parts of a course are the
motivation for doing the hard work that gets us to the
next exciting idea.
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