I understand that education has to evolve as technology becomes available and as we learn more about how different people learn. It is easy as an academician to declare certain ways of teaching ineffective. It is totally different to stand in front of 30 eager minds, each with different learning styles and disabilities and try to deliver a lesson. As an instructor, I am not trying to compete with your DVD player, computer, or any other means of entertainment. I don’t have to. My goal is to impart knowledge “by any means necessaryâ€. I remember sitting in the back of classrooms, wondering why I was there, wishing the teacher would shut up. I remember thinking what a giant waste of time it was. Over the years, some of that information is the most important things I learned. It wasn’t fun or interesting, but through lectures, assignments, homework (yes, homework) and tests it was drilled into me by sheer repetition. I am glad I did not have the ability to “fast forwardâ€ through it. This may not be the best way to teach, but teaching is a bit of an act of desperation. You have someone’s attention for a relatively short period of time and you are trying to impart knowledge to them, whether they know it is important or not. You can’t rely on the learner to judge what is important. If the learner has no respect for the teacher, they have lost that “apprenticeâ€ mentality and might as well try to figure it out on their own. The most important thing we can do to help our children learn is to empower our teachers, give them the tools they need, and pay them a competitive wage. None of these revolutionary ideas will be effective because it will end up being another “one size fits all approach to learning just does not workâ€. The teachers have got to be free to teach “by any means necessaryâ€. I agree that we, as educators, should ask ourselves if there is a better way. Most teachers do, but we need an opportunity to implement our ideas.