Subject
authority, classroom, education, lecturer, lecturing, pedagogy, specialist, teacher, teaching, teaching methods, university, W. A. Townsley.
Description
This article from The Argus in 1955 quotes Mr W. A. Townsley, a lecturer in Political Science, on the outlook of Australian Universities as ‘still mediaeval’. Criticising lecturing on the reasoning that it turns out ‘poorly educated, highly technical specialists’ instead of critical thinkers, Townsley negatively invokes the medieval period to explain the continued use of lecturing as the principal method of university teaching. This, he suggests, is ‘a hangover from medieval times when only very few people were educated’. Implied in this statement is a sense that the medieval period is ‘backwards’ or reactionary, and that progress requires a move away from medieval ideas about, and methods of, teaching.