Kearney, David and others.

A teacher is not condescending when he or she enthusiastically introduces
new worlds of knowledge and experience to a learner, as long as those are
new worlds that the leaner wants to explore. ( I am talking mainly about
adult learners).

A teacher is condescending when he or she thinks that the learner's way of
thinking is deficient, uncritical, insufficiently inspired by Socrates,
Aristotle or other canons of Western thought , on insufficiently politically
aware, even though the subject matter being taught is not Western thought,
nor Western philosophy nor politics, but simply how to speak, read or write
better in a language.

The Western canon, and the logical and philosophical schools that form part
of it, including 19th century diversions like Marxism, are not conditions
for learning to read, and, in particular, are not necessarily welcome to
people from outside the European, individualistic tradition.

I think that the teaching of these disciplines should be left to
specialists, and left to programs which are clearly identified as being
about philosophy or political economy or Marxism or whatever.  To attempt to
teach these under the guise of language teaching can be condescending, in
the sense that it is more about showing off than achieving the specific
pedagogical goal of improving language skills.

Steve Kaufmann
604-922-8551
 <http://www.lingq.com/?referral=steve>
<http://www.lingq.com/?referral=steve>


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