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A dialogue from Plato's book of Collected Dialogues introduces us to the role of teachers in transferring knowledge to its pupils.
Socrates: Let me explain. If someone knows the way to Larissa, or anywhere else you like, then when he goes there and takes others with him he will be a good and capable guide, you would agree?
Meno: Yes, he will


Socrates: And as long as he has a correct opinion on the points about which the other has knowledge, he will be just as good as guide, believing the truth but not knowing it.
Meno: Just as good
Socrates: Therefore true opinion is as good as guide as knowledge for the purpose of acting righthly. That is what we left out just now in our discussion of the nature of virtue, when we said that knowledge is the only guide to right action. There was also, it seems true opinion.
Meno: It seems so
Socrates: So right opinion is something no less useful than knowledge.
Meno: Except that the man with knowledge will always be successful, and the man with right opinion only sometimes.
Socrates: What? Will he not always be successful so long as he has the right opinion?
Meno: That must be so, I suppose. In that case, I wonder why knowledge should be so much more prized than right opinion, and indeed how there is any difference between them.
....
Socrates: If you have one of his works untethered, it is not worth much; it gives you the slip like a runaway slave. But a tethered specimen is very valuable for they are magnificient creations. And that, I may say,has a bearing on the matter of true opinions. True opinions are a fine thing and do all sorts of good as long as they stay in their place, but they will not stay long. They run away from a man's mind; so they are not worth much until you tether them by working out the reason. That process, my dear Meno, is recollection, as we agreed earlier. Once they are tied down, they become knowledge and are stable. That is why knowledge is something more valuable than right opinion. What distinguishes one from the other is the tether.
.......
Socrates: To recapitulate then, assuming that there are men good and useful to the community, it is not only knowledge that makes them so, but also right opinion, and neither of these comes by nature but both are acquired-or do you think either of them is natural?
Meno: No


If knowledge and right opinion can only be acquired through learning, the role of teachers and mentors in the virtual world is to transfer knowledge to as many people as are interested to become "good" men in their communities. As communities have changed drastically since Plato's time, I found useful to learn about the origins of "knowledge". When some elements are missing as visual face, the learning is done by telling the truth which is sensed because pupils need to learn how to have a right opinion first.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge