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Ms. Wertheimer warms them up with a text-dependent question: "Are all of these native peoples nomadic?"

"On page 6, paragraph 2," he says, "the first sentence: 'The Haida and Tlingit of the Northwest built permanent wooden homes called longhouses.' "

seems to engage the kids

Researchers have identified qualities like delayed gratification, "grit" and "mindset," and they've developed curricula designed to instill those qualities. The idea is that the ability to apply yourself to a task, screen out distractions and believe in the possibility of your own improvement is a bigger determinant of success than reading and math skills.

key is to get them to do the assigned reading — what he calls the "information-gathering" part of education — before they come to class.

"It used to be just be the 'sage on the stage,' the source of knowledge and information," he says. "We now know that it's not good enough to have a source of information." Mazur sees himself now as the "guide on the side" – a kind of coach, working to help students understand all the knowledge and information that they have at their fingertips. Mazur says this new role is a more important one.

Although we find ourselves as travelers in the age of over sharing, it turns out we remain quite adept at avoiding the really tough topics.

Google’s Eric Schmidt recently stated that every two days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of civilization through 2003. Perhaps the sheer bulk of data makes it easier to suppress that information which we find overly unpleasant. Who’s got time for a victim in Afghanistan or end-of-life issues with all these Tweets coming in?

Between reality TV, 24-hour news, and the constant hammering of the stream, I am less likely to tackle seriously uncomfortable topics. I can bury myself in a mountain of incoming information. And if my stream is any indication, I’m not alone. For me, repression used to be a one man show. Now I am part of a broader movement — mass avoidance through social media.