"Education Is Not Just a Vocational Enterprise"

"There are different pedagogical approaches all over the place. There are many younger historians, much younger than I am, who are more familiar with using social media as part of history teaching—using all sorts of Internet and other resources in classrooms. I'm sure that can be very positive, although it might become distracting. My experience as a teacher and as a student long ago, is that there is no substitute for a good teacher. I don't care what bells and whistles that you're using, it's the teacher in the classroom. That's why I'm a little skeptical about MOOCs, online education. I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that the presence of a teacher is actually critical to learning.
"I'm less interested in pedagogical approaches than the training of the teacher, the ability of the teacher, the knowledge of the teacher, and the teacher's ability to inspire students by conveying his or her own enthusiasm for the subject."


David Cutler at The Atlantic interviews Eric Foner about teaching history.