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After observing the various postings on teaching students WN, and largely 
agreeing with A. Waterman's post, I thought the List might like to hear 
from a student. 
 
I am an Honours student at Murdoch University, Western Australia. Last year 
myself and another student made a presentation to our local economics 
society regarding our first year tertiary experience. We argued for a 
compulsory year long course in the history of economic thought which might 
naturally include reading excerpts from some of the classics. We felt 
without this history the economic theory we were being taught remained 
oblique. As a first year I remember feeling a desperate need for context, 
ie. a historical perspective.  I 
was told that I was in a minority and that most students do not learn 
this way. I struggled through first year doggedly trying to learn 
neoclassical theory without knowing where it came from, how the concepts 
had arisen and changed over time.  When I started reading WN by myself it 
was almost revelatory. Suddenly the theory I was being taught started to 
make more sense. I could see where! ideas and concepts had come from - I 
had the context I needed to enable my learning and the contemporary theory 
was no longer so intimidating. 
 
It amazes me that those who set the undergraduate economics curriculum fail 
to understand the important of context to learning. If you are not prepared 
to engage in rote learning as a first year you will not survive. If you 
want to challenge, argue, even simply understand your discipline you will 
be disappointed and probably drop out of economics. I believe a first year 
course in the history of economic thought should be taught simultaneously 
with the usual introductory neoclassical theory ( I won't argue for 
introductory heterodox theory as I know that will never happen!). Students 
are more likely to find their freshman year engaging, satisfying, and yes, 
even interesting, wonderfully interesting as the history of economic 
thought unfolds. 
    
Judith Cockburn-Campbell 
    
 
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