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Prof. Ruth Soetendorp's
Selected Publication In Detail
Conference Papers
Soetendorp, R. [2006]. "Embracing ignorance in Higher Education" Society for Research in Higher Education Conference, Brighton, UK
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| Ignorance receives a bad press, which it doesn’t deserve. Negative, and unwarranted, associations with ‘stupidity’ and ‘foolishness’ can make ignorance a quality from which to shy, or for which to apologise particularly when ‘education’ is on the agenda. 'Ignorance plays in the cultural imagination as the figure of error and the absence of rational scientific thought. As a pedagogical phenomenon, ignorance is understood to be ignoble at best, evil at worst. It is seen to frustrate the work of knowledge and therefore the work of teaching, to have no valid place in the work of pedagogy'(Mosher 2003). But ignorance as ‘unknowing’ or as ‘preparedness for learning’ has enjoyed some highly respectable champions. For Socrates knowing that one was ignorant was a far better state of affairs than possessing beliefs that were untrue. For Benjamin Disraeli ‘To be conscious that you are ignorant’ was ‘a great step to knowledge’. |
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