We are now resource, technology and
information abundant. Everything is
available. The scarcity model is
dead. Anyone trying to make a pay wall actually
pay knows this to be true. If I can find
it for free, why would I pay? More to
the point, if I can teach myself, why do I have to listen to a teacher?
I was at high school before the World Wide
Web was a thing. I was good at not
listening to teachers. I was so good I could do it without the help of the Internet. I made it into an art form. I can daydream with the best of them.
I can also spot a teacher who doesn’t know
what they’re doing. Some of my
teachers were bad at teaching. They were
bad at it all by themselves, without the Internet. Some were great at teaching. I would have asked them for help before going
to Google because of their skill.
Engaging with them was a delight.
The Web has nothing to do with the
relevance of teachers. Some of them were
irrelevant before 1994. Has the
Internet made the others (the good ones) irrelevant?
Think back to a teacher who really made an
impact on you. Chances are their impact
was personal. It wasn’t their
understanding of their subject; it was their understanding of you that made the
difference. You connected with
them. They took time to address your
needs. They made the world a better
place because of what they did and said.
Have you noticed that we haven’t become any
smarter or wiser since 1994? A googolplex of information might be available, but Silvio Berlusconi is still at large,
obesity rates are through the roof and owling is still a thing. We don’t need teachers to give us the
facts. They’re readily available. We need teachers to help us make sense of
them. Mathematics needn’t be scary. Sentence construction can be a creative
delight. Subatomic particle physics is
endlessly fascinating[1].
Did your teachers simply give you endless content and then test you on it? Or did they help you make sense of the world through the subject they were teaching?
[1] Note: The value “endless” can
only be known if the value “fascinating” is unknown. And vice-versa.
