"I'm Mr. S. I have a degree in English, a Master's Degree in Education, and 5+ years of experience as an English teacher. I also have strong feelings about what a good educator does (and doesn’t) do.

We live in a time when anything you'd like to know is available, for free, 24/7. So why don't we live in a society of perfectly-educated monster geniuses?

Because learning is *not* about remembering sequences of facts. We have all had the experience of cramming the night before a test, getting a middling grade on that test, and then forgetting the information forever. That sequence of facts didn't stick.

For the facts to stick, they must have something to stick to. That is, one must already have a body of knowledge such that the new facts, the things one is trying to learn, "slot into" what you already know in a way that makes them seem important. Most American students would have an extremely difficult time trying to learn about 17th-century Japanese theater, because they have no background in it and so no knowledge to connect new facts to. By contrast, I find that many students have an easy time learning about English as it relates to music, movies, and video games -- because they already have a background in those things.

The teacher's job, then, is to find a student's subject weaknesses, understand what knowledge and interests the student does have, and then sequence and motivate all learning such that it is presented as an answer to a problem the student has already identified. I'm very good at doing this. I can make the difficult stuff feel easy. When it’s delivered correctly, it is." less...