Education as a Moral Practice

This chapter argues that education itself is a moral practice, part of the ‘humane studies’ or humanities rather than the social sciences. Ideally the ‘practice’ should be in the hands of moral educators rather than in the hands of managers, trainers or ‘deliverers’ of a curriculum. To teach is to engage intentionally in the activities which bring about learning. Teaching is more than a set of specific actions in which a particular person is helped to learn this or that. The performance-based management of education takes on a distinctive language through which to describe, assess and evaluate an ‘educational practice’ and thus the professional engagement within it. Teaching can be very narrowly conceived as any intentional attempt to impart learning – the learning of specific skills or particular facts.