Encapsulated Freedom of Thinking

One of the major characteristics of philosophy is it encourages freedom of inquiry. The notion of freedom of inquiry itself is inherent in the notion of freedom of asking questions. In fact, philosophers say that the world would stop spinning if human beings stop asking questions. And in philosophy there are two fundamental questions that have made this branch of science keeps breathing: "why things the way they are, why not in different states".

In a seminar I attended recently, there was an interesting presentation on the impact of the utilization of IT in education on the role of teacher in the instructional process. The issue was addressed in the framework of educational philosophy. I think it was not a coincidence that the two questions were cited again in the presentation. Anyway, the main proposition made was that the utilisation of IT in education has somewhat reduced the teacher role into a mere "tour guide-like"position, which is not favourable.

Pertaining to this issue, as an educator, I am fully aware of the notion of teacher' conservativism that identifies a tendency among teachers to preserve the old way of doing things which, in many cases, has been blamed as the main cause of failures of some innovations in education. However, just like the philospher who likes to use their opponents' arguments to strike back, I would like to utilize the two questions to bring up an up-side down view of the isssue. Why do we still look at the nature of teaching and learning the way we do now, whreas in reality the world has changed and will keep changing? why don't we change our conceptualization of teaching and learning to one that goes with the reality of the everchanging world?