Reflections in the Classroom: Learning to Market Education

Reflective practice has become a key trope within debates around teaching and learning in higher education. Yet, beneath this anodyne rhetoric, teachers and students are being disciplined in a manner that aligns so-called “standards” and professional development with the corporate strategies of educational institutions. Educational developers who seek to promote “standards” and “accountability” in the learning environment enforce the practice of “reflection” as a key educational experience and tool. Repetitive reflective exercises become the means and the monitoring of education. How should anthropology, a discipline that focuses on dynamics of diversity and structure, respond to this discourse, and the generic teaching methods that it promotes. And what are the links between these initiatives and the marketing of higher education as a quality-assured educational product? This article compares the author’s experience of teaching English to European teenagers in a small community centre to teaching anthropology to undergraduates in a large university. It uses the case of the HEA accredited teaching course that was meant to bridge these two, apparently distinct educational realms.