ABSTRACT
Though I have taught for more than 35 years, it is only over the last several years that I have spent a significant amount of time watching others teach. It is clear that most of these teachers have seen their job as facilitating a student’s encounter with information. This is what they do, and they tend to believe it is what they have to do. Answers are the measure of a student. And telling is how teachers work to get students there. This is especially so because of the high-stakes testing environment we have established in most of our schools. But this issue is not a modern one. We have struggled for many years across this terrain, and still we are left with this simple question: What do we teach, when we don’t teach answers?
