The teaching of Stats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just like your liberal arts class;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a stats prof has THREE DIFFERENT AIMS.
First of all, there's the concepts the students use daily,
Such as Percent, Median, Average or Means,
Such as Sample, Deviation, Null or Variation--
All of them sensible everyday memes.
There are fancier themes if you think they sound meatier,
Some for the theory, some for the games:
Such as Econometrics, Scatter-plots or Bayesian--
But all of them requisite level-one aims.
But I tell you that stats is a class that's particular,
A class that's peculiar, but don’t be petrified,
Else how can one keep up their average percentage,
Or apply to grad school, keep scholarships high?
…
It isn't just like your liberal arts class;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a stats prof has THREE DIFFERENT AIMS.
First of all, there's the concepts the students use daily,
Such as Percent, Median, Average or Means,
Such as Sample, Deviation, Null or Variation--
All of them sensible everyday memes.
There are fancier themes if you think they sound meatier,
Some for the theory, some for the games:
Such as Econometrics, Scatter-plots or Bayesian--
But all of them requisite level-one aims.
But I tell you that stats is a class that's particular,
A class that's peculiar, but don’t be petrified,
Else how can one keep up their average percentage,
Or apply to grad school, keep scholarships high?
…
But above and beyond there's still one aim left
over,
And that is the aim that you never will guess;
The aim that no student research can discover--
But THE PROF HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a prof in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his aim:
His evaluations and funding,
conference-cunning,
Academic bureaucracy’s ongoing game.
And that is the aim that you never will guess;
The aim that no student research can discover--
But THE PROF HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a prof in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his aim:
His evaluations and funding,
conference-cunning,
Academic bureaucracy’s ongoing game.



