The notion of "enlightenment" holds within it two seemingly contradictory attitudes. On the one hand enlightenment is synonymous with freedom, self-determination, autonomy and independence. On the other hand, in their critique of enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno draw attention to its more pernicious features. This critique of enlightenment as domination has moved now from critical theory to postmodern critique which argues that the whole enlightenment project with its notions of emancipation and "telos" stands opposed by the experience of education as "the experience of difference, the experience of a radical, non-totalizable alterity". Spanos (1993) and Usher and Edwards (1994) amongst others, in different ways, announce the end of this education. In this article, the author discusses what "the teacher" makes of this end of education. The teacher may strive to embrace difference but she is undermined by having to impose equivalence through measurement and examination. She may support the end of education, yet she is pivotal in its continuation. Her heart may wish things were different, but her job marks her as "the dutiful child of the Enlightenment." The author points out that against the "fallacy" of the teacher is the "return of the teacher". It is a big leap from classroom (and lecture room) to Kant, Plato and Nietzsche, but it is a leap that does justice to the negative significance of the difficulties that teachers experience. Anything less, as always, sells teachers short, denying their contradictions and struggles of authority a subjective significance and substance. (Contains 15 notes.)