Students are human beings (discuss)

Abstract

This article argues that the following seven thoughts are absent from most formal reflections on teaching : 1. We do not teach in an ideological vacuum; 2. We are not here to give students what they want, but rather what we know to be good for them; 3. Every model of learning implies a model of humanity, and may be judged by it; 4. Students do not know what higher education is; 5. Higher education is education in values; 6. Classes are the common rite in the cathedral of reason; 7. The lofty aims intrinsic to higher education are necessary enabling conditions for the utilitarian, economistic aims imposed on it from without. It concludes that we have to pay attention to some rather old-fashioned ideas about pedagogy in order to get the full benefits from the latest teaching technology.