# Teachers/Professors: Do you teach to the top, bottom, or middle of your class?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-professors-do-you-teach-to-the-top-bottom-or-middle-of-your-class/505245>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 4, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-professors-do-you-teach-to-the-top-bottom-or-middle-of-your-class/505245 "2009-08-04T01:19:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\
**Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-professors-do-you-teach-to-the-top-bottom-or-middle-of-your-class/505245/21 "2009-08-15T03:36:22Z")

</div>

I teach college freshmen. Roughly 20% of the people in my classes will be dropping out within the first two semesters, and I see no point in catering to them. I aim for the ones who are actually capable of college-level work.

In assignments, I generally think of the second and third quartile. But in lecture/discussion, I try to range up and down – restating the obvious on the main points, but also throwing a few things out there that I know 80% of them won’t catch. Frankly, if I don’t do a bit of the latter, the class bores _me_.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teachers-professors-do-you-teach-to-the-top-bottom-or-middle-of-your-class/505245.md?page=1)