Mon Feb 6 08:23:37 EST 1995
================= ECONHIST.TEACH POSTING =================
The following excerpt from Zorah Ememi's article on
"Joan Robinson's Views on Teaching Economics"
from _History of Political Economy (Winter, 1994),
Vol. 26 no. 4 may be of interest to list members
because it suggests that Robinson assigned a central
role to history in the teaching of economics:
"In this article, I argue that Robinson's interest in teaching is
inherently connected to her views on the nature, definition and
methodology of economics....she came to believe in the central
role that history and uncertainty play in eocnomic analysis as
she matured as an economist and teacher. This emphasis on
history implies that she does not consider the tools of economic
analysis to be universally applicable across time and space. AS
will be clear in the following sections, these beliefs lead directly
to, and are affected by, her views on the difference between effective
and ineffective teaching."
"Robinson's practical experience as a teacher in Cambridge was based
on a tutorial system requiring active learning on the part of students.
In this system, the student is encouraged to explore issues and problems
within specific disciplinary areas while working closely and on an
individual level with a faculty member. Robinson's continuing
theoretical emphasis on history, is not coincidentally, one that
views the responsibility of the teacher as one of helping the
student develop, in the context of history and economics, the
type of analytical, problem solving and valuing skills that
encourage the student to become an independent thinker.
In a 1953 article entitled "An open letter from a Keynesian
to a Marxist," she writes,
I was brought up at Cambridge, as I told you, in a period
when vulgar economics had reached the very depth of vulgarity.
But all the same, inside the twaddle had been preserved a precious
heritage -- Ricardo's habit of thought. It isn't a thing
you can learn from books. If you wanted to learn to ride
a bicycle, would you take a correspondence course on riding?
No. You would borrow an old bicycle, and hop on and fall off
and bark your shins and wobble about, and then all of a
sudden, Hey presto you can ride a bicycle. It was just
like that being put through the economics course at
Cambridge. Also like riding a bicycle, once you can
do it, it is second nature.
"Clearly for Robinson, learning economics is primarily
a matter of learning skills and abilities that subsequently
become second nature. Given her view that the theory
and methodology of economics must necessarily be
responsive to actual hsitorical circumstances, it would
seem inconsistent for her to teach economics, as if one
all-encompassing theory had been discovered. She saw her
responsibility as one of developing life-long thinkers who
would learn economics by actually doing economics in
different circumstances."
"A neoclassical economist might object that indeed there are
considerable analytic and problem-solving skills and
techniques that students learn in economics programs
dominated by this theory, and that these programs do,
finally, teach the 'economic way of thinking.' This
'economic way of thinking,' was not, however, what
Robinson had in mind in her discussion of the
necessity of teaching the students to 'do' economics."
"How would Robinson go about teaching economics in 1960?
She would begin by discussing various types of economic
systems, thus introducing history and diversity at the
outset. The major implication of this
starting point, of course, is that laissez-faire capitalism
is shown to be only one way of organizing society, and one
which is not actually possible in pure form. 'Adam Smith,
Ricardo, Marx, Marshall and Keynes would be treated in
terms of the model of an economic system that they
each had in mind and of the actual problems that
each sought to solve.'"
>From Zohreh Emami, "Joan Robinson's Views on Teaching Economics"
History of Political Economy, vl. 26 no. 4, pp. 665, 672-3,678.
David Mitch
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