There is hardly a bigger issue in education: should teachers actually teach, or should they stand around pretending to be furniture?

Modern progressive education constantly praises Constructivism, Discovery, student-centered learning, et al. Conversely, progressive education is absolutely indignant about the thought of a teacher directly telling a student anything.

But ask yourself these questions and answer in a personal way:

1) If you were going to a lecture, about art, finance, finding true love, or anything else, wouldn't you want the biggest, bestest, most fantastically wonderful sage to be up on that stage? Of course you would. You'd have to be a nut to go to a lecture with some ignorant amateur dithering around and finally telling you, hey, if you want to know something about this subject, look it up.

2) If you were a totalitarian dictator and you wanted to make sure that your young people didn't know enough to think their way out of a paper bag, wouldn't you adopt a policy of little or no teaching? Wouldn't you proclaim the genius of keeping kids busy all day with projects, creativity, networking, critical thinking, and every other empty bit of jargon, while making very sure that no facts were ever mentioned in the classroom? Of course you would.

"Sages on Stages Desperately Needed"  is on American Thinker and has 50 good comments.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/sages_on_stages_desperately_...