Steve Talbott

How hard it is to keep faith with ourselves is painfully evident in education, where everyone disclaims the fact-shoveling model of learning. And yet the unconscious metaphors by which we reveal our real real convictions about education revolve more and more around the idea of downloading information or transmitting it from one database to another. And the computer in the classroom makes this idea irresistibly concrete. Transfixed by the efficient data flows all around us, we easily lose sight of the fact that lack of information has not been the bottleneck in education for decades, or even centuries, if it ever was. Rather, the task for the teacher is to take the infinitesmall slice of available information available that can actually be used in the classroom and find some way to bring students into living connection with it.