As virtually all of us have seen, a vast majority of those we refer to as being teachers are more presenters than anything else. Good teachers, the ones who lie in bed at night thinking of new and better ways to excite interest in a topic, stand head and shoulders above the rest.

When I ran a college copy center I soon came to realize that a lot of the professors ran off copies of the same tired handouts, semester after semester, year after year. A few others would rush into the copy center, perhaps an hour before the day's classes were to begin, to make copies of some brand new materials that they hoped would capture their students' imaginations or illustrate a point a bit better. These latter teachers were still excited about getting students to learn rather than simply plugging along like hack horses with blinders on.

While it is extremely encouraging to see teachers who really want to do all they can to teach, it is equally discouraging to know that they are not at all in the majority.