"To teach well," writes David Webster, "is not simply to transmit knowledge or to facilitate the production of correct answers. It is to model a way of being in relation to knowledge: one that is attentive, discriminating, and alive to the possibility that understanding can deepen." This has implications, he writes, that tend toward a system of education based on presence, that is relational, iterative and slow. Fair enough, and I'm all for taking time with nuance and precision (though I think attitudes like A. J. Liebling's "kind of delighted voracity... to seek out, taste, compare, and pursue the best that can be found" is more pretentious than anything). The problem with Webster's argument is that while learning slowly is fine, teaching slowly is inefficient and expensive. What we need are ways (and means, and motivations) to be able and willing to learn slowly on our own for otherwise most of us will not have the opportunity to learn at all.
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