On the givenness of teaching: Encountering the educational phenomenon

Over the past decades educational theory and practice have made a strong turn towards the language of learning and towards the practice of learning, where the learner has been put in the centre of the educational endeavour and the teacher has been moved sideways. In this chapter I argue that the educational phenomenon cannot be captured in terms of learning but needs a notion of teaching and, more specifically, a notion of teaching that stands on itself and cannot be reduced to or deduced from learning. A notion of teaching, therefore, as something that is radically given. In this chapter I try to argue why this is so and why this matters educationally. In a discussion on the work of Jean-Luc Marion I also show why the question of the givenness of teaching goes to the heart of phenomenology itself so that, through the exploration of the givenness of teaching, we may encounter the educational phenomenon itself.