Teachers are not psychologists of sociologists and they shouldn't try to be. They are trained to impart knowledge using the Socratic method.

Socialization develops secondary during the knowledge process. Teacher should and do strive to develop an individual student's potential, but the onus is on the student with encouragement from their parents to develop whatever potential they have.

Teachers need to concentrate on delivering well thought out curriculums that are constantly updated. Mass education deserves to be a primary focus. The more educated a population is, the better equipped societies become.

There is a place for rote learning in subjects such as acquiring skill at learning how to type that is accomplished by practice and more practice. Repetition is part of acquiring the manual dexterity needed in order to master the keyboard. Spelling drills can be made to be fun in the earlier grades.

More work needs to be done at the University level for teachers who are in training to understand the different ways to impart knowledge. I believe there are four accepted methods that have been established for: visual/ verbal, visual/nonverbal, tactile/kinesthetic and auditory/verbal. There could be others but these are the four most common learning styles students have. Teachers need to know which style they acquire knowledge best at and then adapt their learning pattern to other methods.

Less attention needs to be paid to theories of education and more emphasis placed on the practicality of teaching students how to acquire knowledge. I believe the lifetime goal for education is to promote making learning a lifetime experience starting at pre-kindergarden and becoming a never-ending pursuit.

In grade one, I had a primary teacher that walked me to a library a couple of blocks from the school. She was an exceptional teacher that I never forgot--she opened a marvellous world of books for me. Her act of kindness endured my entire life. There wasn't one poor teacher in the primary school where I attended and my neighbourhood would now probably be classified as economically challenged.

I did become a teacher in later life, but did not stay with the profession because my husband's company needed my services. In June, I'll be 65 and I am just finishing an elective course in creative writing at a university--a thoroughly enjoyable class I might add.

Each year of schooling builds on the next. In modern schools, there quite often are too many specialized teachers that rotate within the teaching curriculum. Young students need to get to know one another and develop a relationship with their teachers. Schools need to limit the number of teachers that students are exposed to in the primary grades. Maturation develops with age and developing students aren't emotionally ready for teachers who possess expertise in fields until they are old enough to attend high school.