The Problem of Economics Teaching

[Zauls]

So until fairly recently, I was an economics student at a top UK university. However, I left my course because I was dissatisfied with the way it was taught. I found it was trying too hard to become a hard science and only one strand of economics was being taught, which was the free-market neoclassical approach. The refusal to teach other schools of thought in the subject, plus the fact neoclassical economics isn't much more than manipulating oversimplified economic models without any application to the real world, meant that there was no room for debate or even any kind of written work in economics. Turns out I wasn't the only person dissatisfied. This radio program interviews students and academics who are taking action to try and solve this problem:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b074zgr2

 

This is on BBC, so I'm not sure if anyone outside the UK will be able to access it, not sure how that kind of stuff works with the whole TV licensing things outside the UK.

[Dad]

So until fairly recently, I was an economics student at a top UK university. However, I left my course because I was dissatisfied with the way it was taught. I found it was trying too hard to become a hard science and only one strand of economics was being taught, which was the free-market neoclassical approach. The refusal to teach other schools of thought in the subject, plus the fact neoclassical economics isn't much more than manipulating oversimplified economic models without any application to the real world, meant that there was no room for debate or even any kind of written work in economics. Turns out I wasn't the only person dissatisfied. This radio program interviews students and academics who are taking action to try and solve this problem:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b074zgr2

 

This is on BBC, so I'm not sure if anyone outside the UK will be able to access it, not sure how that kind of stuff works with the whole TV licensing things outside the UK.

 

Biased teaching?  That's gonna do nothing except hold your students back.  Really unfortunate, as economics is a great course to learn.

[vla1ne]

I took an economics class that went through multiple models, the teacher had a clear bias towards fee market, but he gave all the best and worst points of every model and let us learn everything evenly.

[♪ ♪Aria ♪ ♪]

Economics, a part of life.....for profitable gain and business management, learning through models and exercises/tests based on real-life companies can be a staple way