trial-and-error elimination process, the author proposes that this is how students learn in school. Therefore, students do not need to want to learn, and do not need a purpose, for their knowledge to grow. The belief that the teacher must pay heed to a students' purpose in order to teach them, is viewed as a crippling factor in education.
Teachers are seen as approaching their task with the identification of goals. Perkinson proposes that not only is the transmission of knowledge an illusion, it is immoral. He sees students as learning through a process of understanding what the teacher presents based on abilities to assimilate, rather than merely receiving knowledge. The mere transmission of knowledge would be an authoritarian transaction that would prevent further growth. Since students do not retain irrelevant information, the method will usually fail.
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