Teaching in an Assembly Plant

Today I decided I was going to fill up gas cans for the lawn mower, so I headed on over to the local gas station about two blocks away. I then whipped out my plastic debit card, slid it in the machine and started filling up with gas, then headed back home. Five minutes later I checked my bank account balance and saw the amount was debited from my account already, this got me thinking - Our ability now to instantly pay for stuff now without ever touching so much as a physical penny, yet in education we rely so much on pencil and paper and physically having that text book in front of us. With businesses now having the ability to transfer the money from my bank to the gas station through using the visa as a bridging link in the connection, why can't we have teachers bridging the connection through the source of knowledge and to the recipient of the knowledge? In this world there are so many sources and variations to the same information so widely available; from wikipedia resources to re-enacting it in Second Life, why are students being spoon fed information from one specific source only to site it on paper again? Why should every student have the exact answer in order to correctly pass a test? While many teachers try hard to do their best, they are yet required to teach students specific information by a specific date. Teachers are becoming more and more like factory workers by assembling specific parts to each student as that student makes his/her own way down the line until they reach graduation. Automotive plants are being shut down because they were making vehicles that people didn't really want, so how is school different if they are sending students out into the world when they have been trained to so called "take the test"? In my own humble opinion students need to be their own teachers, and teachers need to be those of guard rails, the ones to keep them on the path when students start to wander off. But so long as teaching to the test remains the same through no child left behind, teachers become those left behind, affecting the future of students in silent ways.........

How are you making a dent in the teaching trend?

I'm always interested to hear your thoughts..