Reflecting on Assumptions

Illuminating limitations

The result of this assumption-challenging exercise is not to be dispiriting ('can we be confident about anything in teaching?'), but to illuminate the limitations of teaching methods that we have unquestioningly been using.  Conversely it also helps us to reconsider techniques that might currently be less fashionable, but may nonetheless have merit.

It might be useful now, either on your own or with colleagues, to think of ('hunt down') some assumptions in teaching that you have unquestioningly accepted. Try to view these assumptions from other perspectives and consider whether you are still so confident about their universal validity.

What should you do with a 'hunted assumption'?

Once an assumption has been hunted down, the point is certainly not to abandon it. 'Hunting assumptions' is a technique that helps you more fully examine the potential of any teaching method, not necessarily to reject it, but to use it wittingly rather than unwittingly.