Teaching and writing, to me, is really just seduction; you go to where people are and you find something that they're interested in and you try and use that to convince them that they should be interested in what you have to say.
Interpretation
Teaching is about engaging others by connecting with their interests.
In this quote, Lawrence M. Krauss likens teaching and writing to the art of seduction, emphasizing the importance of understanding the audience's interests and using that insight to draw them into a conversation or idea. By identifying what others are captivated by, one can effectively persuade and inspire them to explore new concepts or viewpoints.
In practice
During a teacher training session, one might use this quote to illustrate effective teaching strategies.
The one experience that I hope every student has at some point in their lives is to have some belief you profoundly, deeply hold, proved to be wrong because that is the most eye-opening experience you can have, and as a scientist, to me, is the most exciting experience I can ever have.
If our species is to survive, our future will probably require outposts beyond our own planet.
The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models.
I cannot stress often enough that what science is all about is not proving things to be true but proving them to be false.
To the extent that we even understand string theory, it may imply a massive number of possible different universes with different laws of physics in each universe, and there may be no way of distinguishing between them or saying why the laws of physics are the way they are. And if I can predict anything, then I haven't explained anything.
The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis.
Conscious listening is very largely overlooked in the mainstream of education. It's such an important skill in life. And yet we expect children to pick it up from home or from peers informally.
Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.
It would be suicide in the American academy to show too early an interest beyond your doctoral specialization: charges of everything from charlatanry to ambition would be levied and tenure denied. I've seen this first-hand.
Now, the education of our children is of national concern, and if they are not educated properly, it is a national calamity.
Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope... Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition.
I loved books; I read my childhood away. I was more interested in my interior world.
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