For about half a century behaviorists have worked hard to do away with ";mentalistic"; notions such as meaning, representation, and thought. It is up to future historians to assess just how much damage this mindless fashion has wrought. Where education is concerned, the damage was formidable. Since behaviorism is by no means extinct, damage continues to be done, and it is done in many ways. One common root is the presumption that all that matters - perhaps even all there is - are observable stimuli and observable responses. This presumption has been appallingly successful in wiping out the distinction between training and education. Educators share the goal of generating knowl­edge in their students. But knowl­edge is not a transferable commodity and communication not a conveyance. Children are not repositories for adult "; knowl­edge,"; but organisms which, like all of us, are constantly trying to make sense of, to understand their experience. If we come to see knowl­edge and competence as products of the individual's conceptual organization of the individual's experience, the teacher's role will no longer be to dispense ";truth,"; but rather to help and guide the student in the conceptual organization of certain areas of experience.