The process of teaching is not selfless, as some suggest. Rather, in its best manifestations it is an ideologically and culturally loaded activity in which teachers and institutions seek to perpetuate a certain integrated view of the world for their own benefit, for that of their learners, and for society more generally. This takes place most effectively when positive teacher-student relationships underpin face-to-face educational exchanges in which teachers engagingly make the case for the existential significance of their subject matter.