April 14, 2019, by atyhh
What does it mean to teach? Lessons from a UoN philosophy lecture!
What does it mean to teach?
I recently sat in on a lecture in Communicating Philosophy, where we looked at the concept of teaching and what it really means to teach.
The common conception and why it’s wrong:
Looking at the work of Fisher and Tallant, we were asked to reconsider our understanding of teaching. Why? Because there’s a problem with the common conception of teaching, which is that it has two necessary conditions:
1. Learning – the learning of the student is a necessary condition for teaching to have occurred.
2. Intention – the intention of the teacher to bring about learning is a necessary condition for teaching to have occurred.
What’s wrong with this?
Take these two cases:
1. Bobby has numerous swimming lessons, but against the coach’s best efforts still can’t swim. It seems intuitive to say that teaching has occurred, despite no learning having occurred, suggesting learning isn’t a necessary condition of teaching…
2. An actor is cast as a teacher and is reading a convincing script to his class. The pupils, unaware he is an actor, listen attentively and learn from him. While there was no intention to teach, it seems the actor has done some teaching!
A new conception of teaching:
So, what does it really mean to teach?
Fisher and Tallant’s answer is that teaching is a judgment dependent concept: teaching has occurred if, under ideal conditions, someone judges that they are being taught.
Power to the people! Only YOU know if YOU’VE been taught.
We finished with some questions for further seminar discussion:
Do you share Fisher and Tallant’s intuitions about the Swimmer and Actor case?
Can Robots teach?
Do you think teaching could be judgment dependent?
We would love to hear your view! Join the discussion by tweeting #NottsLetsTalk, or to hear more about philosophy at UoN email us at digitalcommunications@nottingham.ac.uk.
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