My role as a teacher is to bring those texts to the students
and hope that they snag something in their minds so that the
information flow slows or even comes to a momentary stop. If I
can draw students into the literary world of 400 to 500 years
ago -- even briefly -- their present can become richer and
more complex, if not more efficient. A student who has come to
grips with a text from another culture from many centuries ago
no longer perceives the present in quite the same way. The
awareness of the complexity of a difficult text from a foreign
culture leads to an awareness of the complexity that marks our
present culture. That makes for a less-efficient consumer of
facile marketing and political spin; but that inefficiency
makes for a richer individual and a more responsible citizen.
-- Michael Randall "A Guide to Good Teaching: Be Slow and
Inefficient" The Chronicle of Higher Education December 8, 2000