2008.08.09 topic: teacher 的作用被many sources 取代了
Some assert that teachers’ main function is to pour information to the students. Therefore, as there emerge various sources and tools to provide information, the status of teachers is sinking in. It is true that the advanced information tools substitute some work of the teachers. Albeit, after clearly examination, the conclusion that teachers would fade out remains questionable.
The threshold problem lies in the premise that teacher is only a vehicle of transferring information. But teachers shoulder the obligation to not simply fill students with information, but also transmit critical eyes to filter information, provoke creative thinking to solve problems, and enlighten how to learn independently. For instance, a history teacher should not only illustrate the time, characters, and result of a history event, but also provoke their thinking about the reason, meaning, comparison to other events, and the use for current lives. And it is widely accepted that the work of education is to help student discriminate right from wrong, good from bad, helpful from useless. Admittedly, pouring information is an indispensable part of education, but it is only a fraction of the whole work of teachers, and is the process rather than the goal. Otherwise, teachers would have degenerated into a machine.
Considering the mass resources of information, we find it more problematic to threaten the function of teachers. The effects of resource is to provide teachers more interesting materials, more attractive ways, and more new conceptions, thereby helping teachers educate sufficiently and effectively. It is only reasonable that mass resources assist the teachers. And such resources should be made use of under the direction of teachers.
If the students, younger ones especially, are exposed with the information storm, bombarded with the various propagandas, without teachers’ helping them filter the information, thousands of students would be lost in the information ocean. Therefore, the status of teachers is not diminished but, by stark contract, emphasized by the mass resource.
In conclusion, the worrying that the enormous sources would replace the work of teachers is unnecessary. Moreover, the students are in increasing demand of teachers’ direction in modern society.