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[EuchreJack]

Looking at the cutting of several skills, and the upgrade of the Stealth skill got me thinking about the future of the Teaching skill.

What does the Teaching skill in its current version really give the player?  More grind, mainly.

As is, it could be eliminated without the player noticing, as long as the "teach liberals" command was still available.  Change the formula so every liberal teaches like they got a teaching skill of 5, and suddenly the grindy part of teaching goes away.

However, for thematic reasons, the Teaching skill should be maintained.  How can the liberal conspiracy succeed without the Education prong?

So I suggest two changes:
1) Only allow liberals with one skill point in Teaching skill to teach other liberals. 

Anyone without that skill point simply can not grasp how to instruct others.  Note that the Teaching skill can still be learned in the University, so this doesn't act as any great hurdle to your operatives.  However, they now need to get that basic education on Educating in order to teach others, during which they can't go on site actions.

2) Treat the Teaching skill the same as the Business, Science, and Religion skills during interrogation. 

So, conservatives say that schools brainwash people into liberalism, eh?  Why not implement that as a feature?
After all, Teaching is sort of like the liberal equivalent of Business, Science, and Religion, so it makes sense.  In practice, it makes sense that Associate Professors would be easily converted by Senior Professors.  The name of the Teaching skill may need to be changed so this makes more sense.  Scholar or Education may work as new names.

[Greenbane]

What does the Teaching skill in its current version really give the player?  More grind, mainly.

...How exactly? Spend some time learning Education at the university and then you're good to go to start teaching liberals at a decent pace.

And from my point of view (and I think the game's), Teaching is more a politically neutral skill. It's a means to an end. There's liberal/moderate Teacher NPCs, and conservative Educators. Sure, you can impart new, radical ideas, but at the same time conservatives can use the same means to indoctrinate young people and teach them what's right. Keeping the populace ignorant for the government's benefit is largely an obsolete method by now, given the better alternative propaganda presents. Modern conservatives wouldn't stifle education, but rather strive to control it.

While I agree with the base concept of both your suggestions, I'd personally have Teaching indeed help interrogation, but conservatives would be able to resist accordingly by drawing from their firm knowledge base (Business, Science, Religion, depending on the teacher's argument) and their own Teaching skill. With various degrees of success, relative to skill levels, of course.

[Mahou Shoujo]

Teaching is one of those paradoxes, like the first anvil.

[EuchreJack]

Yeah, there were some flaws in that intro post. 

Still, conservatives do in fact feel that education, especially at the college level, is some sort of liberal conspiracy.  The number of liberal professors that go on to be elected as democrat representives (at least two presidents served as university professors prior [Obama taught Constitutional Law, and Wilson was a College Dean], with probably more that I'm forgetting) sort of adds to the theory, accurate or not.  Needless to say, high school educations in rural conservative locations tend to be conservative indocrination also.

More to the point, I should not have used the term grind, but rather should have pointed out that the skill is simply uninteresting and fails to deliver anything meaningful in comparison to other skills.

I agree that Teaching should be stackable (and perhaps multiplicative) with the other knowledge skills.  In a way, the interrogation process is "teaching" among other things.

For example: "The reduction of pollution admissions by businesses not only is vital to protect the environment, but also saves businesses money.  We must act quickly, as China is quickly outpacing our environmental protection efforts, and history teaches us that once a nation falls behind in a technological race, it takes significantly more effore to catch up."  The argument draws upon Teaching, Business, and Science, and those three areas build a stronger argument than any one individual area.

As I am not a programmer, I'm not going to propose any particular formula.  However, the assessment of teaching makes sense.

[Innominate]

I don't know, I think teaching should only apply in interrogations to determine the heart level of the successfully brainwashed. Teaching usually implies a receptive audience, with persuasion dealing with resisting subjects.

[Mahou Shoujo]

I agree with Innominate there. I think teaching is more about helping people learn specific things and persuasion is more important for general indoctrination and, you know, persuasion. Also, business, law, science, and religion are all skills that deal with issues, whereas teaching is more of just a trade skill. Well, I guess education is an issue, but it's more of a "children are the future, so this education stuff needs to somehow be better" sort of issue than one with clear partisan lines. Controversial stuff that's coincided with education, like segregation, religion, and private vs public don't really have much to do with education itself.

Also, teaching has a useful purpose as is. For the sake of balance and streamlining the design, I don't think it needs to be mixed up with the domains of other skills.

[EuchreJack]

Also, teaching has a useful purpose as is.

How so?

Considering my opening post is an argument that teaching has no useful purpose, I'd like to know.

I also like Innominate's theory that teaching should act as a "booster" to the Heart of Enlightened.  That is not how it works now, best as I can tell.

[Mahou Shoujo]

I meant that I agree that teaching implies a receptive audience.

The point of teaching is to teach skills, of course. It covers a lot of skills that the University doesn't, trains more at a time, and does it for less money. I haven't used it yet in the new version, though I've found it invaluable for training commandos in earlier versions. If teaching is going to do anything, it should train skills. I disagree that it should have an effect on interrogations for the reasons that I already gave.

And for your senior professor/associate professor example, that's an example of social position being a factor and not necessarily how skilled an individual is.