What does it mean to be authentic? Why should it matter whether or not we become more authentic? How might authenticity inform and enhance the social practice of the scholarship of university teaching and, by implication, the learning and development of students?
Authenticity in and through Teaching introduces three distinct perspectives on authenticity, the existential, the critical and the communitarian, and shows what moving towards greater authenticity involves for teachers and students when viewed from each of these angles.
In developing the notion of 'the scholarship of teaching as an authentic practice', this book draws on several complementary ideas from social philosophy to explore the nature of this practice and the conditions under which it might qualify as 'authentic'. Other concepts guiding the analysis include 'virtue', 'being', 'communicative action', 'power', 'critical reflection' and 'transformation'.
Authenticity in and through Teaching also introduces a vision of the scholarship of teaching whose ultimate aim it is to serve the important interests of students. These important interests, it is argued, are the students' own striving and development towards greater authenticity. Both teachers and students are thus implicated in a process of transformative learning, including objective and subjective reframing, redefinition and reconstruction, through critical reflection and critical self-reflection on assumptions. It is argued that, in important ways, this transformative process is intimately bound up with becoming more authentic.