ABSTRACT
One of the most distinctive things about teaching as a form of human action is that it involves a particular kind of love. This includes a love of what one teaches and a love of those whom one teaches, or more precisely, a creative combination of both. This much is uncontroversial. Neither is it controversial to say that achieving this kind of combination is, in each instance, an original accomplishment on the part of the teacher, requiring perceptive understanding and discerning judgement. To regard this accomplishment as an erotic one, however, or to give eros1 a central place in educational practices, as Steiner does, is to confound things in two ways. First of all, it is to give priority to a kind of love that is burdened with problematic associations where teaching and learning are concerned. Second, it is to detract attention from a proper exploration of the kind of love that is particular to, indeed essential to, educational relationships. This latter is a practical kind of love, requiring forms of insight, circumspection, restraint and inclusiveness that are largely strangers to eros.
