Hello and welcome to Hankgames without Hank, my name is John Green, manager of the AFC Wimbledon Wimbly Womblys currently plying their trade in the third tier of English football, the EFL league 1. Today I've got a topic from a Project for Awesome contributor named Michael. Thank you, Michael, for donating to the 2106 Project for Awesome. We raised more than 2 million dollars for charity this year. Pretty fantastic. Speaking of fantastic, I like a good bald and we've got one.

Just a quick update, there's been a very interesting and disturbing development here in EFL league 1. There I am, Asiosi Manager with my beautiful red mane, staring impassively at the side I've selected for the day. There's been a fascinating development in league 1 which is that AFC Wimbledon are currently in 1st place, some might say that's due to semi-professional skill level being significantly lower than real life skill level, some might say that semi-pro is what I am at FIFA so I'm in the right place. Anyway, we're in first place. Currently in second place, the franchise currently playing in Milton Keynes, only 2 points behind us. High drama in the first half of our first season if FIFA 17, it doesn't get much worse than that. 

Ok, the topic is from Michael, he writes, "As a future math/theatre teacher." Quick, hit the pause button. What is a math/theatre teacher? What do you do for a living? Oh, I teach the theatre of mathematics. Or alternately, the mathematics of theatre. I guess you could probably do either of those. What I like about you, Michael, and about your pursuits in general, is that there should be no bright line between the hard and the soft subjects in school. The idea that like somehow you can insulate or isolate yourself from mathematics or from the arts is just ludicrous. It all happens together, it's a big interconnected web of trying to understand ourselves in context and trying to understand what we even mean when we talk about ourselves. Anyway, "I was wondering if you could talk about how much of education

is a science and how much of it is an art form, I'm always torn between the two due to my polar opposite content areas." Well again, Michael, you're not talking about necessarily opposites. These things can be, they can be connected in deep ways. You know the, I don't like to be one of those people who like worships the Greeks (like I make fun of Aristotle a lot and I think I'm justified in a lot of my making fun of Aristotle although for the record Aristotle is a genius). Anyway, that's something that I like about the Pythagoreans and what not is that they saw math and theatre and art and science and religion as all deeply interconnected and didn't try to silo everything away into it's own little world.

Good start here against Sheffield United. We're starting England's greatest lyric poet, T.S. Elliot. The John Greens, they've just been having a tough time with little JJ, he's been sick. It's very distressing. Oh come on! That was a really nice piece of play and then Lyle Taylor, who's been struggling all season. I'm sorry to lose my temper, but Lyle Taylor's been struggling all season and that's just reprehensible. I mean, Asiosi Manager is just, he's so disgusted that he won't even show his face to the camera. There it is, god I'm handsome.

Anyway, so in the world of education, there's an obsession right now, and to some extent with good reason, with quantification, with being able to measure whether a teacher is successful, whether a student has learned the material, whether they can prove that they've learned it, and whether they've learned it in a lasting way and not just a way that they can pass a test, you know, 5 minutes after cramming and then forget everything that they learned forever, which unfortunately happened to me a lot in high school. The idea there is a very good one. It is important to measure success because otherwise we don't know if

if we're succeeding.

This has been a big problem in a lot of fields for a long time, right? Like we don't, uhhh, for a long time we didn't know for instance how well, uh you know, certain vaccines work cuz... we didn't do a good job of measuring how effective, uh, different surgical procedures were because we do randomised control trials and stuff -that was a fantastic, uh, tackle there by my uh hardworking right and/or left back; I don't have a great sense of direction. 

Um, and so uh I am broadly in favour of quantification, I think it's, it's important and good. T.S Elliot! A great author, but not always aware of the off-side trap. Um, I think, uh, you know I think it's - but the risk of it, uh, my friend Logan Smalley who works for Ted-Ed, uh, says this a lot, and it seems to me so deeply true. 'The risk is that we conflate what is easily measurable with what is important.'

So, a lot of times we say oh, this is a good metric because we know how to measure it rather than this is a good metric because this actually tells us if kids are learning. Wonderful, wonderful stop by Shea LaBeouf who deserves an OSCAR for, what was his most recent role, Meredith? Um, IMDb that for me? Uhh, just, just a wonderful actor. Um, and increasingly, a somewhat interesting artist slash activist, though it's difficult to tell if he's kidding, and it's difficult to tell if it's actually good.

A little bit of a latter day... I was gonna say "latter-day Andy Kaufman, but that's... being a little too generous to Shea LaBeouf. Anyway, that's a nice pass, that's... less good. But then, OH MAN, you got to be able to get that away Camps Camps! I mean I- we acquired Camps Camps based primarily on his haircut. And I don't know that that necessarily has turned out to be that great for us.

But we'll see. Life is long, and the arc of history bends toward gingers. Um, so I worry that we have a history and a habit of measuring- Oh no. I'm sorry, has there been an injury? No, he's fine. Um, -of making important what is easily measurable. And it certainly seems to be that is the case in education in a lot of cases. Not every case certainly, but a lot of cases.

We have not yet found really good metrics, and I think one of the reasons that Crash Course has been so relatively successful, uh is that we have chosen not to engage in the metrics economy at all, even though that's where most of the, like money and interest is in foundations and stuff when it comes to educational content. We're just trying to make stuff that people like. 

And I think that has worked really really well for us, instead of, you know, focusing on trying to build out all of these assessment tools that aren't necessarily, um you know, like I just don't think the science of it is yet at a place where the assessment tools necessarily work particularly well. 

Um, so I think that in that sense teaching is still an art in the sense that it's very difficult to, you know, to know what great looks like until you see it, right? Like it's one of the reasons that we have an apprentice model for teaching, is that it really helps to learn directly from excellent teachers. Uh, you get that experience in the classroom with special teachers that you just cannot get in school, that you can't like study it up.

You can learn a lot of important theory, but there's also stuff you can't do. I should also say by the way, that I am not an expert in what makes a teacher great. To me, it's something that like a famous supreme court justice said about a very different topic, that you know when you see it. But it's not necessarily easy to define. 

So I think it still is, um, an art, but I think there's a lot of rigor to it, and so I think it's like a lot of things. It's one of those places where, uh, the art-science dichotomy doesn't necessarily apply because it's both/and rather than either/or, right?

Like it's really important to have your kids pass tests. I don't think we should be teaching to test necessarily, but I think it's really important to have your kids be able to master material and be able to share what they've learned in a way that, um you know, that helps reinforce their understanding of it. And so the quantification- oh frick. 

Oh f- oh Shia Labeouf! Probably should have picked that up, but he didn't. But that's okay, we've just given up a corner kick. Gotta say, things are not going particularly well against Sheffield United at the moment. And given how close we are- Now clear that with your A button. That was really good. Really, really- eh it wasn't that great. 

Alright Lyle Taylor, uh, very disappointing first half. There's no two ways about it. He's coming out. Um, I'm bringing on John Green. And we're also gonna bring on John Green. And then we're gonna take off Camps Camps because I have not been thrilled with his performance. And we're going to bring on America's favorite pirate, Parrett. Pirate, Parrett, that's his name. Don't wear it out. 

Alright, three substitutions all at once, just like the pros do, here in the 60th minute, trying to give ourselves a good chance to win this game that we frankly probably lost on points so far, but uh, fortunately soccer is not scored like boxing. Ah so oh! Shia Lebouf. What was his most recent movie? It's called Man Down? What is Man Down about? Is is about, like, an escaped prisoner? It sounds like an escaped prisoner movie. 

Post-apocolyptic America? Oh? You mean America? Oh! oh oh oh oh! Yikes! That almost didn't work out. But it did, um, everything worked out in the end, just like in post-apocolyptic America, hopefully. 

Uh, so yeah. I think you've gotta be able to do both. You've gotta be able to do the science of it and the art of it. But I think- Look, the main thing I wanted to say in this video is, uh, talk to great teachers about what constitutes great teaching. Talk to the best teachers in the school where you're working. Learn from them, because they know a lot more than I do, or anybody else who works in the field of like educational content. 

Like there's something that teachers do in classrooms that Crashcourse can never ever do, and I think part of Crashcourse's success has been understanding all the things it can't be. Um, and so I, you know, I think we cannot be a replacement for classrooms and for classroom experiences. And there's nothing that, um, I've ever seen in the world of ed-tech, as they say, the educational technology world. There's nothing I've ever seen to give me any, um, feeling or thought that, uh, that technology can replace or mimic what great teachers do in classrooms. 

And, you know, when I look at my own life, like I was so lucky to have really good teachers, and that's probably, you know, one of the number one reasons, along with my you know my parents, that I ended up in such a good position in terms of my readiness for work and the ability- the kinds of work I've been able to do is largely down to the teachers I had. 

And also I, you know, like they shaped so much of the fields I ended up studying. Or ended up being.

Oh golly jeez– wow, what a great job passing out of the back by the Wimbley womblies. And is it going to lead to a counter-attack? that's a nice series of balls! context is everything! oh is it going to happen? OH MY GOODNESS! it's a goal for the ages from the Wimbley Womblies! Bald John Green! John Green. He gives it all for the team. Upon his mustache we're keen. Bald John Green. John Green. Right into the corner. Magnificent! Oh everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. Bald John Green with the Wimbley wombly’s counterattack of a lifetime in the 88th minute to secure us the three points that will ensure we spend yet another week atop the EFL league One table. Oh my god! so exciting! Oh I can barely contain myself.

So yeah I—talk to great teachers and you'll learn from them. And I have every confidence that you will be a great teacher who your kids will remember in gratitude one day. One of the problems of being a teacher is that although you benefit the lives of the kids you work with for the rest of their lives, they almost never tell you because they're busy– oh no oh no oh my god! I don't even know what just happened! what just happened? Did we give up the goal or did we not? we did not?? a ??? with an epic epic save! Wow! My voice just cracked a little. anyway— thanks to all the teachers and best wishes.