"These teachers are constructivists, and they're the ones we remember."

While I don't plan on filling my blog with quotes from other folks, I came across this one as a dug into a book that I used for a class about eight years ago.

"During a workshop several years ago, a teacher, reflecting on her own education, noted that the teachers who influenced her most were the few who made difficult concepts accessible by seeking to understand what she knew at the time.  We have heard many people recount similar stories about their most memorable teachers.  For the most part, these remarkable teachers mattered so much because they were less concerned about covering material than they were about helping students connect their current ideas with new ones.  These teachers recognized that learning is a uniquely idiosyncratic endeavor controlled not by them but by their students, and they knew that conceptual understanding matter more than test scores.  These teachers are constructivists, and they're the ones we remember."

From the Introduction of In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms