Gaining assent in educational situations? : Reconsiderations about persuading children

From the 1980s on, facing the need to ensure a non-coercive teaching in schools, persuasion as an educational method has been highly praised by scholars in educational science, education-related agents and teachers. This method had schoolteachers to meet the following two requirements: 1. The teacher shall gain the agreement of the pupil about the validity of the taught content in order to perform teaching. 2. In cases where the teaching is judged to be imperative and the pupil\u27s agreement cannot be gained, teaching without agreement is allowed. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the efficiency and limits of such a persuasion method from an ethical viewpoint. Referring to the debate on informed consent and assent in the field of medical science and bioethics, the following three arguments will be made clear: l. Since the grounding of beneficence has become impossible under postmodernity, the persuasion method is essential in order to legitimate the beneficence of the schoolteacher. 2. The persuasion method acts also as an opposing factor to the present tendency toward standardization in school teaching. 3. Therefore, it becomes clear that one willing to use the persuasion method to ensure the ethical legitimating of school teaching while wishing to uphold the present condition of school teaching is bound to fall in a serious dilemma