The desire to know more

"People cannot learn by having information pressed into their brains. Knowledge has to be sucked into the brain, not pushed in. First, one must create a state of mind that craves interest and wonder. "You can teach only by creating an urge to know." Victor Weisskopf (1908-2002)

As this school year comes to a close, I look bakc upon my 42 years of teaching. It's been an interesting journey, to say the least. I began in what was then the largest high school in Georgia with 2,100 students, and I end in a rural eastern Washington high school with 58 students.

In 1971, the standard approach to teac...