Humility in Teaching

Abstract

In order to extend our understanding of the relationship between humility and teaching, Leonard Waks investigates both humility and teaching as philosophical concepts and considers their conceptual connections. In doing so, he shows how humility is related conceptually to teaching in unexpected ways. He begins by offering some reflections on the term “humility” and its origins, and next moves to an analysis of the concept of humility. His analysis, first, distinguishes between negative and positive humility and then differentiates two types of positive humility: (1) analytic or self‐critical humility, and (2) immersive or transpersonal humility. After expanding on the meanings of these terms, Waks relates both types of positive humility to the three most developed contemporary philosophical conceptions of teaching: the analytic, feminist, and critical pedagogy conceptions. He relies exclusively on the classic, canonical, or paradigmatic formulations of these conceptions, showing that humility is at the heart of all three of these philosophical “paradigms.” Waks concludes that, while his analysis does not demonstrate that humility is a cardinal virtue of teaching, it does justify the hypothetical assertion that humility is a cardinal virtue if any of the three well‐developed conceptions, or any synthesis of them, is accepted.