The New Theory of Learning by Thomas L. Magliozzi

Tom is one half of the famous Click and Clack the Tappet brothers. He has this article up on the Cartalk website. It's of course preaching to the unschooling choir, but I am impressed that he writes about education without pulling any punches. He used to be a college professor for decades and writes from personal experience.

"We put an expert in a roomful of people and the expert proceeds to tell them everything he knows. A major problem with this approach is that we ask people to sit and listen for long periods of time. Studies indicate that under such circumstances, we have an attention span of 20-30 minutes, and we retain about 20 percent of what we hear. This so-called "teaching" doesn't result in much learning. It results in, maybe, someone remembering enough to pass a test."

"Why are we trying to teach people who don't really want to learn?"

He ends with this gem:

Don't let an "expert" stand in front of people and tell them everything s/he knows. This is mostly just an ego trip for the expert, and a very boring experience for the victims. The overhead projector has done more to destroy learning than any other thing I can think of.

Definitely worth a read...