<p>** i mean teacher, omg. this is hsl. what was i thinking. </p>
<p>he grades and * responds * to everyone's homework every week (we send him latex files and he sends them back with scores and comments on each problem). And the homework is proofs which can often times be done in a bunch of ways. So he has to follow your argument to find where it's wrong, if it is. Or if it's right he has to see how it is, which obviously takes a lot of mental effort. The problems might be simple, but following any chain of reasoning is demanding.</p>
<p>I have a really depressing mental image of him spending hours and hours in a dark room willing his brain to work faster, or something. He's over 70, so that's why i feel so much dispair - no one likes to be continuously reminded of their own degeneration, and i can't help but speculate that he is, in doing this task which requires the aspects of intelligence that one loses first.</p>
<p>I've never seen this. help. how do i show my appreciation.</p>
<p>The best way, in my opinion, to show your appreciation, is to give him a simple “thank you” card, with a short letter talking about how grateful you are for the effort he puts into the class and how much you learned and how far you came in his class. My dad is a guidance counselor and he appreciates those types of gestures much more than say a gift card.</p>
<p>He might be doing all of this work to avoid the exact mental degeneration you’re talking about (in the same way that other old people do crossword puzzles or try to learn another language). Even though I don’t know the whole situation, it sounds like you shouldn’t worry that much. I can only hope that I’ll be that passionate about something when I’m that age.</p>
<p>A thank you card like Cortana said would be nice.</p>
<p>yeah, sincere thank-you’s are the best. If I do something it will be like that. good lord I would never spend money on a teacher (unless i knew he/she was in serious financial trouble).</p>
<p>corvids, interesting perspective! yeah I think that’s probably part of it. of course, the whole thing is still sort of futile. if I wanted to do something to ward of mental degeneration i wouldn’t do something as dreary as what he is doing. I would teach easier classes, and in the saved time do stimulating things that interested me.</p>