On the first day of ninth-grade health class, one blackboard was covered with the names and locations of the major bones and muscles of the human body. The diagram stayed on the board throughout the term, although the teacher never referred to it. The day of the final exam, students came to class to find the board wiped clean. The sole test question was: "Name and locate every major bone and muscle in the human body."

The class protested in unison: "We never studied that!"

"That's no excuse," said the teacher. "The information was there for months."

After the students struggled with the test for a while, he collected the papers and tore them up. "Always remember," he told us, "that education is more than just learning what you are told."