Wolverine and the X-Men #19

[lordultimus]

Comments

[icon_uk]

Oh Charles and Emma as teachers would be fine, they actually are qualified educators AFAIK.

I wasn't aware that the original five and the original New Mutants had degrees. The trouble with that being (especially with the New Mutants) that most of them weren't intellectually gifted, only genetically.

They were smart kids, but the only ones who might be seen as academically gifted to degree level at the ages they were at at Xaviers are Hank (biochemistry IIRC), Kitty (astrophysics and electronic engineering) and Doug (Languages, and in his case only because of his powers, though he has the problem that he didn't so much drop out, as drop dead)

[q99]

Ironically as a whole, the X-men are better suited to teaching super science than job skills.

DeCosta has some business experience too (and I guess Warren?). I'll add 'computer hacking' to Kitty's list.

Hm, considering Xavier was very well versed (he'd use his telepathy to help learn) I wonder how much the others are simply passing on conventional lessons they learned from the telepaths.

Back in the Xavier days, especially pre-M-Day, the curriculum actually looked pretty impressive IIRC. I... think it was a more impressive school than the Jean Grey school ^^

And meanwhile, Revolution-Scott's little school had something like a 4:1 student:teacher ratio including Emma and Kitty, so they ended up fairly spoiled for lessons I'd think.

[icon_uk]

Kitty being a computer hacker was a late addition. Originally she and Doug were a hacking team; she built the cutting-edge hardware, he supplied the software skills. After he died, and the internet age arrived, she sort of picked up his skills too.

[q99]

Well before she became a teacher in any case, and explainable by her working *with* Doug and learning from him.

[icon_uk]

Is hacking a suitable class for a high school? :)

And I could (and have) pondered about how useful Doug would be in trying to explain how his powers work to others since they're intuitive; his brain just translates the languages but there's no indication he actually knows how the process of translation works or how he knows the code he's writing beyond "It does what I want it to do"..

I can get REAAALLLY nerdy about stuff like that

[q99]

Computer science, at least.

And, hm, good question... depends on the skill he's teaching. And is it that he auto-translates, or does he *understand* intuitively? A subtle but key difference. If he understands intuitively, he can stress what's important and not.

[icon_uk]

Questions like this are why Doug is my favourite.

We know that he does not process language methodically, as a scholar would. he doesn't go from A to B to C, he jumps straight from A to M (Where M is complete fluency) and would, as far as we have seen, be unable to articulate the intervening steps because his conscious mind wasn't involved.

He definitely does more than autotranslate what he reads, he comprehends the language in it's entirety. Though Quentin Quire has some feelings about it which I don't necessarily agree with.

He'd drive academics NUTS, since his translations would always be 100% accurate (and would be able to supply an entire lexicography and write in any tense you care to name, probably based off of nothing more than an incomplete recipe for chicken soup), but would not be able to explain WHY he knows it is correct or prove it comprehensively.

And context is another matter. He could read a Japanese joke book, but it's never been clear whether he'd actually understand the cultural context of the jokes intuitively and thus understand the humour, or he'd just get the words and be left baffled as to why anyone would find it funny. (Consider how "My dog has no nose." "How does he smell?" "Terrible!" might translate into other languages)

[q99]

Also I get the impression over time, his understanding has improve and had more context to it, simply because he's had more exposure to various contexts and picked up on them. So even if his powers may have a limit there, he himself is a human who's studied languages and their contexts for years.