ABSTRACT
A widespread assumption underlying all education is that the teacher’s intentions – or ‘objectives’, as they are called when couched in terms of outputs of students’ behaviour – are likely to be promoted rather than undermined by his teaching. We do expect that when a teacher spends a term teaching pupils French or mathematics or reading they will know more or be more competent as a result. It may be otherwise in at least some cases when we are dealing with attitudes rather than achievements. Notoriously, some pupils taught Shakespeare at school are put off Shakespeare for life.
