"I can not teach anybody anything. I can only make them think." Socrates

I found the references to Carl Rogers in Mullan fascinating. I was not familiar with him prior to reading this, but he gives voice to something very close to my own teaching philosophy. The quote at the top of my "teacher website" is from Socrates and says "I can not teach anybody anything. I can only make them think." And here is Rogers saying that "anything that can be taught to another is relatively inconsequential" (37). He believes the only learning is self-discovered learning, and says he would do away with grades and credits. Anyone who has ever been a student knows instinctively that on some level this is true. We learn what we are taught in the elementary and secondary grades not because we find it important to us but because there is pressure on us (teachers, parents, grades, rank, getting into college, etc.) to do so. Our undergraduate work may be different, and certainly our graduate work is, as we move closer to the type of learning Rogers talks about. Funny, when one steps back to look at it, how locked in we are - algebra for 9th graders, chemistry for 11th, Huck Finn in 10th, and so on. But why? Because that's how it's done everywhere else? Ideally, I suppose, one would allow a child to pursue academic learning based on interest, but of course public schools as they are presently constitituted are much about so much order and socialization, that it's almost as though the academic curriculum is something to keep them busy while they do all that other stuff. Maybe home schoolers are on to something.