I write this site from the best kind of expertise, one of interest and experience.
I am not a teacher, though I have taught. I am not an academic, though I have had my brief stay in the academic world as a student; I found it to be not brief enough for my liking. I speak not from the point of view of someone with a PhD thesis on educational psychology to validate my borrowed thoughts, nor from the point of view of the average teacher who is just in a job, albeit an often underpaid one.
I speak as a student, one who had to sit through many a sub-par lecture by mostly clueless individuals who were either not very interested in the outcome, or were genuinely ignorant about the subject matter beyond the most likely questions in an exam. I speak as someone who has had too many stand before me purely by dint of the imposed and undeserved authority of the regimental education system we have built.
I speak as a lifelong learner who has taught himself nearly all the practical skills used in my day-to-day work and beyond. I speak as a human being with a brain, something I value more than the new cool piece of research and a convenient statistic.
I speak with no granted authority because I know it is the bane of all learning, but I speak with a lot of observation and understanding, and the rest I am enthusiastic to learn.