MIT professor never said 'obviously' in class for 62 years. His final lecture revealed the impact

Every educator dreams of making a profound impact, of standing in front of a crowded room at the end of a long career and receiving that one unforgettable farewell. However, only a few actually achieve it, and among the few is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) former math professor, Gilbert Strang. The Chicago native, who taught the same class for over six decades, helped millions learn the math behind AI. However, it wasn't his pedigree alone that got him such a grand send-off; it was rather something else, as detailed in an X post by Kyronis (@kyronis_talks), which has garnered over 10,000 views.

Strang's teaching journey

Strang's journey started back in 1962 when he joined MIT as a professor. He spent nearly 60 years teaching matrices, vectors, and transformations to students. He was a pioneer, someone who loved to share his knowledge and did everything to reach as many students as possible. That's why when MIT launched its OpenCourseWare platform in the early 2000s, and while many educators thought it would make their classes obsolete, he was excited about it. He made high-quality mathematical education accessible to just about anyone. 

This connected the world, helping many across the pond understand they were learning Algebra wrong. Of course, this further increased his following with engineers, data analysts, developers, and everyone learning from him. While this alone was enough for people to respect him, the one thing that took him even one step further was his technique. His teaching rule was simple: "If a student could not explain a concept using a concrete three-by-three example, that student did not actually understand the concept yet," Kyronis noted. 

What made Strang so special?

The other thing was that he made sure to say "please" and "thank you" to his students. Every once in a while, Professor Strang would stop mid-derivation and ask his class, "Am I okay?" This was his way of checking whether everyone was understanding things or not. In fact, he even refrained from using words like "obviously" or "trivially" during classes, as it would affect children. To put it simply, he treated his students with the same level of respect he'd treat a colleague.

This is exactly what made him different from the rest of the professors. As a matter of fact, it's the way he managed his classroom that increased every student's respect for him. And therefore, the room was jam-packed for his final lecture, as everyone silently observed the master performing his final show. There must've been quite a few faces he'd never seen, but they knew exactly who they were there for, as Strang's legacy continues to live on through his recorded videos. 

Good educators matter 

Professor Strang was special, and the way his students respected him shows we need more such teachers to shape a nation's future. According to a study cited by The Educator that involved almost 1,000 participants, people revealed that their favorite teachers helped on several topics apart from academics, with the top three being battling shyness, mental health struggles, and adjusting to a new environment. Yet, more than 70% believe that their teacher's behavior was the same with other students as well. At the same time, 37% of people believe that these teachers made up for their neglectful parents and made them feel wanted. 

'I took a class 20 years ago; we used his textbook'

This only further highlights Mr. Strang's impact, which went way beyond the MIT walls. And so, in another similar tweet about him on X, people came forward and praised him for his contributions. @ihtesham2005 revealed that, "I sent him a ‘thank you’ email a while back and he graciously replied." Meanwhile, @ShootingWeather commented, "Wow, I didn't realize he was still teaching until 2023. I took a computational linear algebra class twenty years ago, and we used his textbook. I still have it; it was one of the best."

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