Education is one area in which I have always been more of an experimentalist than a theoretician; I try to do things that work. I discovered a long time ago that what students take away from my courses (and my research supervision) may depend much more on what they want to learn than on what I want to teach them. I concluded that if I am going to educate, I had better de-emphasize "teaching" and concentrate on persuading students to learn at least the essence of the material I am trying to get across. Over the years I have tried all sorts of methods and devices for doing just that.

I teach at the two extremes of our program: lower-division undergraduate and Ph.D.-level graduate courses. The lower-division course (Engineering 45) is a large lecture course that is required for most engineers and has grown to about 360 students per semester. By its nature the course surveys a vast body of material that most of the students do not know they need to know. So I try to help them enjoy learning, by telling stories from my experiences in the field, by devising exam questions in a narrative or story format and, perhaps most importantly, by conveying the enthusiasm that I have for materials science. Along the way we cover the field.

The teaching problem at the Ph.D. level is almost exactly the opposite. The students are already reasonably well-trained and dedicated. The problem is to maintain their enthusiasm and guide it in a direction that will lead to a productive career. As a teacher, I basically play matchmaker, helping them to identify their abilities and interests, making sure that they have the information and resources they need to conduct advanced research, and interfering as little as possible in the decisions they have to make to achieve successful results. I run a research group of some twenty graduate students, and encourage participants to reinforce one another's learning. We also have a good many successful alumni (over twenty-five Ph.D.s), many of whom retain an active interest in the progress and problems of the current group of graduate students. I sometimes feel more like the custodian of this research establishment than its leader, but I find it rewarding.

The fascinating thing about being a matchmaker is that one never knows where a successful match will lead, and one is privileged to sit back and watch. I have watched students learn things I never knew while I was supposedly teaching them, and do things that may well be beyond my capabilities while I was supposedly directing their research. And I have watched them continue that performance for years after leaving Berkeley. There is an enormous satisfaction in that.