Another Look At a Feminist Ethics of Teaching

Donna Engelmann, Alverno College, From Care Ethics to an Ethics of Milwaukee, WI., teaches and conducts Teaching research in the areas of political and social For nearly twenty years I have been a philosophy, ethics, feminist theory and teacher of philosophy in a liberal arts college pedagogy. She has consulted and presented for women. Ours is not an elite institution, but workshops on teaching, assessment and one whose mission is to educate women who institutional change with faculty and might not otherwise consider a college administrators in colleges and universities in education - women of color, first and second the United States, Canada and Great Britain. generation immigrant women, women from working class and poor families. We have our Abstract share of high school valedictorians, but we By drawing on feminist epistemology, ethics also have many students burdened by and pedagogy this paper articulates some deficient educational backgrounds. Whatever aspects of a care-based ethics of teaching. their learning needs, my colleagues and I try Understanding teaching as a species of to hold our students to high expectations, and caring, it explores some consequences for to provide the support they require to achieve teaching practice of the attentiveness, them. Many influences have shaped my responsiveness, and responsibility choices about how to relate to these students characteristic of caring professionals. and how to teach them; one of the most Résumé important is my reading of feminist En tirant de l’épistémologie féministe de philosophy. l’éthique et de la pédagogie, cet article I believe that a feminist ethics of care exprime clairement certains aspects de provides the best foundation for an ethics of l’enseignement de l’éthique basée sur les teaching, and in this article I want to explain soins. En comprenant que l’enseignement est how feminist ethics and epistemology, une espèce de soin, il explore certaines des feminist pedagogy, and my practice with my conséquences de la pratique de students have informed my view of what and l’enseignement du soin apporté au travail, de how I ought to teach. In thinking about the la réceptivité et de la responsabilité domains of teacher responsibility, I will draw caractéristique des profesionnels qui ont de la on the work of Joan Tronto on professional compassion. responsibility, and in considering the implications this has for pedagogy, I will turn to the work of Goldberger et al. in their 1996 volume, Knowledge, Difference and Power: Essays Inspired by Women's Ways of Knowing. Given some well-founded suspicion of a feminist ethics of care, it is with some trepidation that I propose an ethics of teaching situated within that tradition. Varieties of an ethics of care were developed by a number of feminist philosophers, among them Nel Noddings, Sara Ruddick, and Joan

62 Atlantis 33.2, 2009 www.msvu.ca/atlantis Tronto; and some of the sharpest criticisms of Tronto defines caring about as being this approach have come from feminists attentive to others' need for care, caring for as themselves (Cole and Coultrap-Quinn 1992; taking on the responsibility of responding to Gilligan 1972; Kittay and Meyers 1987; that need, care giving as the response itself, Noddings 1984; Ruddick 1989; Tronto 1993). and receiving care as openness in one's need In most general terms, an ethics of care to the assistance of others. Tronto's account focuses on care as a central moral category, is helpful because she reminds us that care and suggests that a coherent focus of an giving is more than an intuitive and untrained ethical theory can be attention to how we response; it requires competence and might best care for one another in concrete reflective practice. At the same time, situations. Feminist critiques of ethics of care professional competence is incomplete objected to the essentialist claims in early without the attentiveness, responsiveness, formulations about the moral reasoning of all and responsibility called for in a caring women, to what seemed like the valorization relationship. of specifically feminine virtues, and to the In an article entitled "Does Managing somewhat simplistic opposition between the Professionals Affect Professional Ethics?" ethics of care and the ethics of justice. As a (2001) Tronto wrote about the increasing result of two decades of critiques of care tendency for managers to "survey and control" ethics, some refinements of this approach the activities of professionals, in ways that have been articulated, so that in proposing an appear to compromise the professionals' ethics of care for teaching, I can say what I do autonomy. While Tronto does not have much not mean: such an ethics of care would not to say about college and university faculty in require accepting the existence of or this article, complaints by faculty about the advocating the adoption of "feminine virtues"; growing intrusion of administrators into how it would not rest on universal claims about and what they teach are increasingly heard in how all women think or reason morally; it academic circles. Tronto acknowledges that would not take mothering, especially professionals have based their claims to mothering in patriarchal cultures, as the autonomy on their professional expertise and paradigm of ethical behavior (in such a way competence, but she says these claims that good mothering is tied to either servility or sometimes take the exaggerated form of supererogation); and it does not propose an insistence on immunity from scrutiny by the ethics of care as exclusive of and superior to institutions and publics they serve. Tronto other ethical approaches, such as an ethic of calls for a reconsideration of the justice. What care ethics does offer, as does responsibilities of professionals by adding the its "cousin," virtue ethics, is the emphasis on requirement of caring to the possession of the ethical requirements that arise out of expert knowledge and the provision of practices in particular circumstances or competent service. Echoing Tronto, in what domains. follows, I will explore what adding caring to Some early writers in the care competence in the act of teaching might look tradition suggested that an ethics of care like. ought to be restricted to the private sphere, leaving the sphere of politics and public life to Framework for an Ethics of Teaching: be governed by justice, with its emphasis on Attentiveness, Responsiveness, duty, obligation and rights. Instead, following Responsibility Joan Tronto, I suggest that the four If as competent teaching components of caring - caring about, caring professionals we are called to take up the for, care giving and care receiving - can help responsibility for being attentive and to illuminate the responsibilities of responsive to our students, and our students professionals (Tronto 2001). were women, would we teach in different ways to meet their needs, as many in the

www.msvu.ca/atlantis Atlantis 33.2, 2009 63 tradition of feminist pedagogy have stand makes a difference to what we know, suggested? In 1986, in Women's Ways of then it is not irrelevant to women's knowing Knowing, Belenky et al. argued that traditional that women in our society still do the majority courses in higher education were not of domestic labor and have the dominant designed with female students and their responsibility for child-rearing and the care of learning in mind, but foregrounded the the dependent, and that many occupations teacher's knowledge, and focused on and professional fields are still gendered, in questions and issues central to academic and that their practitioners are more likely to be professional disciplines. But questions that one gender than another. Because of women students may have, because they women's social position, women's knowledge arise out of women's experience, may not is often characterized by attention to particular intersect with the questions in the mainstream relationships, objects and persons; it avoids of the discipline as the teacher presents it the separation of the emotions and bodily (Belenky et al. 1986). Effective learning experience from knowledge; and it includes experiences for women would build on what the capacity to appreciate as well as to women know and how they acquire criticize (Ruddick 1996). Recognizing that this knowledge. Effective and caring teaching is the kind of knowing that women may bring would thus not be focused on the teacher and to the classroom, what does being attentive to what she knows, but centered on the student and responding to women's learning needs and her learning. require? In a collection of essays reflecting on the impact of Women's Ways of Knowing ten Frame Within the Frame: Attentiveness years after its original publication, feminist and Responsiveness in Teaching scholars argued that the revolution in Practice pedagogy and curriculum design called for in Over the last several decades, an that work has remained incomplete. Several attentive and responsive feminist teaching of the authors raised concerns about the idea practice has developed based upon that women know and learn differently that assumptions about these processes of are similar to concerns that have been women's identity formation and knowing. As expressed about the ethics of care. Claims part of an ethnographic study of feminist about a distinctive way of knowing for women, teachers in women's studies programs and if not framed carefully, may appear elsewhere in higher education, Frances A. essentialist, create a new feminine ghetto for Maher and Mary Kay Tetreault identified four women, and fail to do justice to the variety of themes in feminists' reflection on their women's experiences (Goldberger et al. teaching - mastery, voice, authority and 1996). In response to these concerns, Sara positionality (Maher and Tetreault 1996). Ruddick suggests that Women's Ways of Positionality refers, as has been said here, to Knowing is itself part of a collective project of giving consideration when designing learning feminist epistemology, the project of to how students' identities are shaped by their articulating "connected knowing," a way of social locations and the relationships in which knowing that arises out of particular social they find themselves. Mastery is concerned circumstances most often occupied by with re-examining what the students are women in our culture (Ruddick 1996, 255). supposed to learn, both in terms of Connected knowing is opposed by Ruddick to disciplinary content and of how that content impersonal procedural knowing, which treats relates to where students are coming from the knower and her circumstances as and what they aspire to become. Voice refers irrelevant to how she goes about acquiring both to strategies for empowering student knowledge and to claims she makes about expression and to constructing a community what she knows. If we assume with the of expression in which student voices can be project of "connected knowing" that where we developed. Authority in feminist classrooms is

64 Atlantis 33.2, 2009 www.msvu.ca/atlantis treated as something to be negotiated failure of today's students to learn to respect between students and teacher, rather than others, to follow proper procedures, and to vested solely in the teacher by virtue of her communicate effectively to their lack of own disciplinary mastery and institutional respect for the epistemic authority of their power. professors. Each of these dimensions of feminist But, as Lorraine Code pointed out pedagogy has been vital to my own practice when examining epistemic authority in What as a teacher. I will explain how in being Can She Know, knowers and knowledge attentive and responsive to our students we claims do not operate in a vacuum. Our need to take into account positionality, claims to knowledge and expertise are not mastery, voice and authority in teaching and just statements about our personal history, learning. but depend for their justification on a complex web of claims about the legitimacy of the Taking Positionality into Account in institutions that shaped us and the social Practice standing conferred on us by our education Positionality is a special concern for (Code 1991). Our students recognize that me as a teacher, given who my students are they have to "get past us" to win their own - over half of my students are the first in their degrees; we occupy the social status they families to attend college, and 40% are seek. While in the earlier, better times that women of color. Being attentive to the social Harris longs for, students willingly paid the location of these students means recognizing price of deference in order to study with that, because many are members of groups master teachers, students today are more that have historically been underrepresented cynical about authority (as, frankly, we all are) in or absent from higher education, they may and may feel that our position is not earned have feelings of estrangement or alienation, but arbitrary, the result of race or class may be uncertain about what succeeding in privilege, or just plain luck. If our relationship higher education will ask of them, or may lack with our students is one of estrangement, our confidence in their ability to do intellectual response must not be a bald reassertion of work. Being attentive also means being aware our authority, but an acknowledgment of its of my own epistemological authority, and of foundations and its limits. For instance, I the social status that advanced degrees and acknowledge and explain to my students the a career in higher education confer. W hile in difficulties of intellectual work for women, previous decades, students were more likely especially working class and poor women and to defer to teaching faculty, the response of women of color. I share my own successes students to my position may range from and struggles as a woman who is trying to live deference to dismissal, and these attitudes an academic and intellectual life. My students may have more to do with what I represent may need assistance and encouragement to than who I am. Miriam Kalman Harris, an enter into academic culture; that culture may associate professor of English, in an article in pose some serious risks for them, in terms of the Chronicle of Higher Education entitled threatening their established identities and "W e are Smarter than Our Students," relationships (Lugones 1989). These risks - of expresses frustration with her students' lack changing identity, of straining ties with home of respect for her disciplinary expertise. In and community - are very real not just for response to a student's accusation that she is students from marginalized groups, but for an intellectual snob, she asks herself, "Who any of my women students. If there exists a do they think we are? What kind of professor, gulf of alienation between ourselves and our with or without a PhD, isn't 'smarter' than his students, it is not likely to be closed by a or her students? And if we aren't smarter, remote posture, but by sharing something of then what in heaven's name are we doing our humanity and our own circumstances with teaching?" (Harris 2002). Harris attributes the them.

www.msvu.ca/atlantis Atlantis 33.2, 2009 65 Fostering Disciplinary Mastery in actively engage in the practice of the Practice discipline, rather than looking on while we and The authors of Women's Ways of others philosophize. But being attentive to our Knowing suggested that a curriculum that students also means that we must recognize helps students to achieve disciplinary mastery that the practices of philosophy and the needs to be designed with the needs of the culture of the discipline have arisen within a students, not the teacher, in mind (Belenky et particular historical and social context, and al. 1986). So being attentive to students that these practices may be foreign to our requires a curricular response, rethinking the students' experiences. For instance, bell relationship between our students' lives and hooks has written about the way in which what they study with us. In our small liberal academic philosophy privileges writing and arts college, there are never more than twenty speaking that is more abstract and full of students who have declared a major in jargon, and scorns philosophizing that is more philosophy, and of these, only a handful widely accessible (hooks 1994). Although it consider graduate study in philosophy. My has set itself the goal of exploring the philosophy colleagues and I earned concerns of everyday life, this hierarchy exists doctorates in philosophy programs that within feminist philosophy as well. My emphasized broad coverage of the history or students, whatever their home communities problems of philosophy. We have the and styles of communication, often find expertise to model our curriculum after our philosophical discourse and problems foreign own graduate studies, but we have made a and unhelpful in addressing the issues in their collective decision to change our focus. We lives. Faced with this gap, I try to close it by have asked ourselves, what use are our selecting those texts and issues closest to students likely to make of their studies in students' experience, by helping students philosophy? How can their philosophy studies translate philosophical discourse into their contribute to a full and satisfying life in own terms, and by explaining connections whatever careers they pursue? Our aim then between philosophy and their own learning is not to survey the history or problems of goals. In addition, philosophy may seem like philosophy, but to teach the discipline of an especially inaccessible culture for my philosophy as a way of learning, as a students because they are women and many disciplinary practice, rather than as a body of are women of color, for they may not see knowledge. (I have written in greater detail themselves and their communities reflected in about this approach in "Teaching Students to the practitioners of mainstream philosophy. Practice Philosophy" in a volume of essays So, in designing learning experiences, I make written by my Alverno colleagues, Disciplines a special attempt to work with texts produced as Frameworks for Student Learning by women and women of color. [Engelmann 2005]). Teaching texts and issues in philosophy becomes a vehicle for Encouraging Voice in Practice student learning about the uses and benefits As a teacher of philosophy, I know of doing philosophy, and an occasion for that the practice of my discipline has practicing the discipline. This also means that historically been dominated by a model that the curriculum has to change with changes in views the pursuit of truth as an intellectual the student body - the demographics of the contest (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Moulton students, their career goals and life 1983). Ideas are brought into a public forum experiences. to be critiqued and thereby strengthened, and We believe that doing philosophy has philosophers write and speak in response to enhanced our own critical thinking, our the objections they anticipate from others. But response to the social and political issues of I must consider whether my students' ideas the day, and our engagement with the arts are ready to be publicly challenged, and and culture, and so we want our students to whether it is my task to prepare them to meet

66 Atlantis 33.2, 2009 www.msvu.ca/atlantis this challenge. Does the prospect of the philosopher, I see my philosophy courses as critique of their ideas affect students a setting for fostering the development of differently depending on the degree of their students' citizenship skills. sense of entitlement to academic citizenship, Being attentive to my students' need so that some are doubly silenced, both by the to find their voices also means that I have an competitive culture of higher education, and obligation to be vigilant about the way my own by a disciplinary culture of contest? Do some biases and opinions may subtly - or not so students have an advantage in the contest subtly - rob students of their voices. For because of background and prior education, example, as a middle class woman, I have and are they unaware of these privileges? been socialized to value hard work, Being attentive to my students' relationship persistence, a concern for appearances, and with my discipline's ways of producing a certain kind of intellectual and physical knowledge entails a responsibility to make tidiness, not to mention deference to one's this mode of knowledge production itself a betters and a willingness to take their subject for study, as well as to explore direction. To what extent is the possession of alternatives to this model of philosophizing. these values and habits really necessary to Feminist pedagogy has been academic and career success, and how does sensitive to the issue of developing the voices the presence or absence of these in my of students, recognizing that being historically students affect how I respond to them? relegated to subordinate positions has I believe that attentiveness to silenced women and people of color. Being students and encouraging the development of attentive to students means creating an their voices allows for a range of acceptable environment in which women's voices are practices in regard to advocacy of a teacher's heard and accorded respect, creating views in the classroom. If the teacher is communities of discourse in which knowledge honest with herself and her students about is produced through dialogue as well as what constitutes advocacy, and if she does through debate. So, I need to determine the not penalize or silence those who disagree, differences in individual students' styles of she should be free to teach out of her own communication, and the differences between ideological perspective, understanding that their styles and my own, and offer a variety of the university is the scene of the free learning experiences that give students exchange of ideas, and that in a setting of opportunities to share their views and develop liberal education, students are exposed to a them in discussion with their peers and variety of viewpoints. However, as a teacher myself. I also understand that the historical of philosophy, I believe that the practice of the emphasis on feminine receptivity over agency discipline commits me to present a multiplicity has not necessarily made women better of views, trying to present the views of all in listeners, and I treat students' development of the best possible light, and assisting my active listening skills as a necessary students to formulate their own views. For component of their ability to dialogue. many students, leading with my own Practical strategies for encouraging students philosophical views might stifle their to voice their views include having students developing voices. Of course, I have my own think and write in response to questions passionate opinions about social and political before they are asked to respond publicly, and issues, and evenhandedness is difficult to providing opportunities for small group achieve. Self-awareness requires me to be dialogue for students who feel more honest with students when my passion about comfortable in face to face interactions than issues makes it difficult to present views fairly. they do in addressing large groups. But my goal is to provide a safe environment Ultimately, however, my goal is for all my in which to dialogue with one another, and to students to develop facility in expressing their disagree. views in a public forum; as a political

www.msvu.ca/atlantis Atlantis 33.2, 2009 67 Reconfiguring Authority in Practice use the same learning outcomes for our In keeping with feminist pedagogical students, but each of us chooses our own theory and practice, I have painted a picture learning materials - books, essays, and films. of a classroom that is governed by democratic We are able to share expectations for what ideals in regard to access and discourse. As students will learn, and for the quality of their an attentive teacher, I am responsible to performance, because as a department we create a hospitable learning environment, have collaborated to create the learning welcoming students to the study and practice outcomes for the philosophy major and the of philosophy and to my classroom. I have courses within it. Each of us also asks emphasized already the need to acknowledge students to assess their own learning, and to the sources, scope and limits of my power as engage their peers in assessing one another's the teacher. Meeting students as whole learning, which encourages the students to human beings also requires that I share my take greater ownership of their educational own humanity; I do this through the use of goals and activities. Our evaluation of their personal examples from my own life, by learning as teachers, while based on talking with students informally as much as disciplinary expertise, and ultimately having possible inside and outside the classroom, by more weight, nevertheless becomes one getting to know students individually, by trying evaluation among many, not the least of to listen carefully to each person, and by which is the student's perspective on her own bringing humor into our conversations. progress. In my courses at the advanced Focusing in curriculum design on level, I ask students to create their own student learning needs and creating a learning goals, which either tailor the existing hospitable environment in which each student learning outcomes to their needs, or represent feels valued both help to establish a more the unique integration of each student's democratic learning situation. Through learning. This decentering (not abdication) of collaboration with colleagues in my institution, the teacher's authority for evaluation I have discovered the power of another complements a curriculum and a learning strategy that democratizes education by environment that are student-centered, or sharing authority and responsibility for more accurately, student learning-centered. learning with the students, rather than reserving it to the teacher. This strategy is the Taking Collaborative Responsibility for creation of explicit learning outcomes and Learning assessing student learning in light of these As Leslie Pickering Francis has outcomes. Alverno College has had a pointed out in her article, "Sexual curriculum based on students' demonstration Harassment: Developments in Philosophy of learning outcomes for over thirty years, and and Law," "Academics tend not to think of we have produced a body of research which themselves as having defined professional attests to the effectiveness of this approach obligations. There is, for example, no (Mentkowski et al. 2000). In my courses, enforceable code of professional ethics for making the outcomes for learning public in faculty members beyond that enforced by advance, and basing the outcomes on what is contract in their institutions or other required to practice philosophy effectively, obligations of state or federal law" (Francis makes it possible for more students to 2002). My own attempt to define some succeed, and makes evaluation of student professional obligations for teachers in higher performance less about what I prefer as an education - to offer an ethics of teaching - individual instructor, and more about what builds on Joan Tronto's suggestion that we learning in philosophy requires. In fact, when apply an ethics of care in analyzing the ethics my colleagues in philosophy and I take turns of professionals. As Tronto has noted, teaching the same course, for instance, an professionals claim their expertise is best introduction to philosophy course, we agree to exercised under conditions which maximize

68 Atlantis 33.2, 2009 www.msvu.ca/atlantis individual autonomy, in the usual sense of the freedom falsely portrays professors as term, and minimize the interference of independent contractors of learning, and the managers and governing bodies. But she university as the general contractor. In this reminds us that professionals invariably metaphor, faculty just show up to put in the depend on other professionals to accomplish plumbing. I believe that Joan Tronto and Lorie their tasks, and that the relationship between Roth would agree that this reduces teacher clients and professionals is almost never a competence to disciplinary expertise and dyadic one. From this she concludes that works against shared responsibility for the professional competence is not an attribute of learning of students. Collaborating, even individuals, but of teams (Tronto 2001). across disciplinary boundaries, to design Professionals rely on one another for curricula and learning experiences and to certification of their competence, and the improve teaching is part of our responsibility exercise of their competence always occurs in as teaching professionals. institutional settings where collaboration is required to achieve the institutional mission. Taking Responsibility for the If as teaching faculty we were to Circumstances of Learning adopt this view of the competence required to If, in order to exercise the care appropriately for our students, we would competence of professional teachers, we be responsible to take steps to overcome the need to be engaged in a collective enterprise relative isolation that has been the hallmark of of fostering student learning, would this college and university teaching. Lorie Roth commit us as faculty to speaking out against describes this isolation very succinctly in an practices in our institutions that are not article published in the AAHE Bulletin entitled conducive to student learning? At the risk of "Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll and the American seeming completely idealistic and out of touch Professor: What American Novels Tell Us with how colleges and universities actually About Teaching." work, I'd like to re-examine two nearly universal practices in higher education that The novels themselves [Jane seem to violate the principle of being student Smiley's Moo, Michael Chabon's learning-centered that is at the heart of Wonder Boys and Richard Russo's feminist pedagogy and of the ethics of Straight Man] give us an answer. teaching I have proposed. These two Teaching is the most private and practices are the large lecture classes solitary act in academic life, and common in freshman general education and teaching is almost always done gateway to the major courses, and evaluation behind closed doors. In these novels through grading. Large lecture classes are even the sex is more public than the justified on the basis of cost. They are teaching…teaching is always private, economical because a single senior faculty unseen, invisible, imperceptible to the member can deliver instruction to hundreds of general academic community. students, assisted by low wage part-time (Roth 2002) instructors and graduate student teaching assistants. But is delivery of instruction the One factor in keeping teaching private same thing as learning? It is nearly impossible is interpreting academic freedom as providing in courses of this size, even with the addition protection not only for what a faculty member of study groups, to make students and their may say, but also for how he or she may say learning needs the focus of the design of it in the classroom. Based on this curriculum and learning experiences, or to interpretation, faculty are often heard to raise create learning communities that welcome the rallying cry, "No one can tell me how to and value each student's contribution. W hile teach in my own classroom." This universities and colleges express concern interpretation of the protections of academic over freshman retention rates, don't these

www.msvu.ca/atlantis Atlantis 33.2, 2009 69 courses really serve to weed out those who articulate some aspects of a care-based are insufficiently prepared or committed to ethics of teaching. While I have focused higher education? largely on the needs of women students (and In a similar fashion, the system of my own practice has been shaped by my grading that is ostensibly about recognizing experiences in a liberal arts college for and evaluating student learning primarily women) the student-centered approach I have serves a social sorting purpose. Yes, it may advocated allows for making the needs of any provide a quick, if not always reliable, means students central to teaching and learning. of predicting the quality of a student's later Understanding teaching as a species of performance in jobs and professional studies. caring, I have explored some consequences But as Alfie Kohn argued in "The Dangerous for teaching practice of the attentiveness, Myth of Grade Inflation," widespread concerns responsiveness, and responsibility about grade inflation in higher education mask characteristic of caring professionals. the true problems with grading. Kohn argues that, by pitting students against one another in References the pursuit of a scarce commodity, the "A," Belenky, M., B. Clinchy, N. Goldberger and J. grading all too often directs students' attention Tarule. Women's Ways of Knowing: The not to learning, but to winning. "The number of Development of Self, Voice and Mind. New peers that a student has bested tells us little York: Basic Books, 1986. about how much she knows and is able to do. Indeed, such grading policies may create a Code, L. What Can She Know: Feminist competitive climate that is counterproductive Theory and The Construction of Knowledge. for winners and losers alike" (Kohn 2002). Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991. There are processes other than grading for evaluating student performance which Cole, E. B. and S. Coultrap-Quinn, eds. recognize the unique character of each Explorations in Feminist Ethics: Theory and student's learning, such as giving narrative Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University feedback in relation to learning outcomes, and Press, 1992. creating portfolios of student work. At Alverno, we do not give grades, but do give narrative Engelmann, D. "Teaching Students to feedback, and every student maintains an Practice Philosophy," Disciplines as electronic portfolio of her work. We know from Frameworks for Student Learning: Teaching our practice that these can be very rich the Practice of the Disciplines, T. Riordan and sources of data for predicting our graduates' J. Roth, eds. Sterling, VA: Stylus Press, 2005. subsequent performance, and they do find jobs and enter professional programs at rates Francis, L. P. "Sexual Harassment: comparable to their graded peers. If both Developments in Philosophy and Law," APA large lecture courses and grading are Newsletters 2.1 (2002):160. justified, it is not because they contribute to learning, but because they are assumed to be Gilligan, C. In a Different Voice: Psychological the only strategies for delivery of instruction Theory and Women's Moral Development. and evaluation feasible on a large scale. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972. Perhaps feminist teachers and proponents of student-centered learning should be working Goldberger, N., N. J. Tarule, B. Clinchy and to find creative and cost-effective alternatives M. Belenky, eds. Knowledge, Difference and to both. Power: Essays Inspired by Women's Ways of Knowing. New York: Basic Books, 1996. Another Look at an Ethics of Teaching In this paper I have drawn on feminist epistemology, ethics and pedagogy to

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