Abstract This paper examines the way mismatches occur between what lecturers believe students understand when technical concepts are used and what the students actually make of those concepts. A hard look is given at certain ‘academic myths’ which block educational exchange, among them the notion shared by many that learning entails mainly the verbal regurgitation of what has been taught. How can lecturers achieve the empathy requisite for genuine teaching and how can students adopt attitudes that make genuine learning more possible? The paper answers these questions by sketching a notion of higher education as a willingness to modify what one thinks by an openness before the challenges of other values and beliefs; and by suggesting that an approach more self‐critically aware of the pedagogic process, utilizing methods such as the keeping of reflexive notebooks, can facilitate a more effective mode of learning.