Abstract
The phrase ‘teaching and learning’ has essentially replaced the word ‘teaching’ in educational discourse. The linguistic shift occurred as part of a wider movement in the 1980s and 1990s to give greater attention to learning in the educational process, and the phrase served a sloganistic function. With the learning paradigm now largely uncontroversial, the phrase—like other ex-slogans—may now be carrying implications more tied to its literal meaning. This paper suggests that the constant reference to learning in the context of teaching carries the implication that teaching is always accompanied by learning. After applying Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between task and achievement verbs, the paper argues that under certain interpretations, the idea that teaching implies learning is deeply problematic. The paper proposes that we instead use ‘teaching and studying’: to communicate the deep connections between the activities carried out by teachers and students, without supporting the unhelpful idea that the activity of teaching must always lead to the achievement of learning.
Highlights
Some phrases are designed to change how we think
Pertti Kansanen (1999) developed a similar idea: “If we describe the activities of the teacher as teaching, I would prefer to call the activities of the student studying” (p. 85)
To argue that “learning is closer to study than Lewis claims”, D’Hoest makes the point that “[l]earning occurs all the time, in and outside school, and is not essentially related to its current wording in terms of work skills, which Lewis and other scholars timely denounce” (p. 413). This suggests that the difference is less profound than might be thought. These possibilities are not conclusive for the idea that ‘to study’ can stand in for the activity sense of ‘to learn’, and that ‘teaching and learning’ can be replaced by ‘teaching and studying’, while preserving the implication that teaching is always accompanied by the activity of learning (P4)
Summary
Some phrases are designed to change how we think They are slogans, partisan formulations intended to promote alternative views of the world. Their message is not limited to the narrow meaning, but they are supported by a set of background ideas to communicate a wider message. ‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘For the Many Not the Few’, ‘Make America Great Again’: they function figuratively to express a grander sentiment than the literal meaning of the phrase. They are intended to persuade, by capturing an idea so concisely and poetically that through repetition they can shift people’s views. In an imagined future without racial injustice, the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ might seem prosaic in the extreme
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