Whole Course Work in Higher Education Teaching

Abstract

ABSTRACT Teaching, as whole course work rather than sessional performance, is identified as an under‐articulated area of educational studies. Utilising five first hand accounts from the author's own practice, five reflections are entered into. Each serves to bring out a different aspect of the whole course experience likely to be shared by teacher and student. Unifying these reflections is an attempt to place teaching and learning endeavours within a broad process of cultural transmission, where cultural theory may apply. This is attempted through an exploration of concepts of nurturance, narrative making, writerly and readerly texts, myths and discourse formation, informed by ideas from Sartre, her, Bakhtin, Murray, Polanyi, Barthes and Gergen. A summary suggests that whole course work of HE justifies its own discourse, and might be related to the expressivist versus instrumental debate initiated by Herder, but revivified in recent times by Charles Taylor. It is suggested that his clarification of modem sensibilities among writers and artists be extended to higher education teachers.