The Distinction Between Teaching and Training

There is an ethical distinction between teaching and training. Teaching engages students in meaningful, thoughtful inquiry that leads to critical examination of issues and institutions. Teaching shifts the response-ability for learning from the teacher to the student by providing guided activities and independent thinking about that which is authentic. Teaching helps students develop an optimal experience within the confines of academic discipline and content knowledge. Teaching is an ethical activity in that it promotes what Aristotle would recognize as the Good and what Levinas would see as being fully responsible for the other.

Training, on the other hand, is not an ethical activity. Training is accomplished using amoral techniques that reward and punish. It is a well known fact that given enough time and a willingness to inflict pain one can train another to do just about anything, say just about anything, and do just about anything. Training does not depend on response-ability, rather it depends on anticipatory response, the avoidance of pain and the stimulation of pleasure.

No Child Left Behind privileges training over teaching, facts over knowledge. It is a dangerous distinction in a democracy.

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