The current role of a teacher

Given the world’s knowledge is available to anyone with a computer and the internet, what is the role of a teacher?

Curator
The information avalanche in the world is poorly organized and unvetted. It is the role of a teacher to collect the best, beautiful, and most useful nuggets. Carefully selecting and ordering the materials so students learn the right thing at the right time is an art.

Given most material is created by experts, it suffers from the tyranny of knowledge problem. Experts focus too much on their specific silo, thus creating knowledge for themselves or their peers.

Condenser
Books are condensers. A great book is often a lifetime of experience and insights distilled into a few hundred pages. Teachers should do the same - concentrate a wealth of material available in the world. That happens at the course and class level.

Catalyst
A teacher should be an agent to both start and spend up learning. Some students don’t realize the importance of learning some material. Other students want to learn but don’t know where to start or where the path is.

Conduit
Teachers should model the love learning and knowledge. Show it is okay to have a passion and be a little nerdy.

Critic
There is a place for gentle push back on students. Teaching (especially with older students) is often replacing misunderstandings or incorrect thinking with better alternatives. Rarely does a teacher make the first marks on a tabula rasa.

A direct assault on deeply-held beliefs is rarely effective. After rapport is established, gentle nudging is a better method to get a mind thinking in a different way.

Creator
Lastly, there is creation in teaching. It could be ground-breaking pedagogy, more often it is simply synthesizing two different concepts.

Whatever the exact nature, the world is a better and more interesting place because of teaching.