We don’t need no educator: The role of the teacher in today’s
online education Stephen Downes, November 13, 2011, NFF
konferansen: Utdanning i bevegelse, Oslo, Norway How often do we
read about the importance of teachers in education? It must be
every day, it seems. We are told about "strong empirical
evidence that teachers are the most important school-based
determinant of student achievement" again and again. The problem
with the educational system, it is argued, is that teachers need
to be held accountable. We are told we must fire incompetent
teachers. Not just in the United States, but in the UK and
elsewhere, the concern is that bad teachers must go. The problem
with focusing on the role of the teacher, from my perspective,
is that it misses the point. Though there may still be thousands
of people employed today with the job title of "teacher" or
"educator", it is misleading to suggests that all, or even most,
aspects of providing an education should, or could, be placed
into the hands of these individu