In any formal or semi-formal teaching, there are always two conflicting paradigms being carried out simultaneously. The first one is a capitalist paradigm, where the teacher functions as a boss who assigns work , for which the students earn credit. In this model, the student comes to a teacher because he has a desire to learn something, and the works cooperatively with the student to help him achieve his goal. I think that both these paradigms are always at work to some extent, but in my experience, the capitalist paradigm is always by far the domininant one in our system of formal education, whereas the cooperative model is much stronger in the many classes I have experienced outside the academic system. I am convinced, in fact, that the main reason many employers look for employees with college degrees is not because of their knowledge and skills, but because the university is a fairly good simulation of the corporate world, and it is fairly reasonable to hope that someone who has functioned reasonably well in meeting the requirements in school will also function satisfactorily in meeting the requirements at work.
Students are given assignments, they work on projects, they meet deadlines.
They learn skills such as listening for extended periods of time to people talking about things which are not very interesting and remembering a large part of what was said. Going to school is the first real job that an individual in our society has. Employers have long since given up the hope that a high school diploma is evidence that a student has learned anything worthwhile. However the diploma is evidence that the person has been successful in the job of going to high school, and thus is more likely to be successful in fulfilling the requirements of some other job. More and more, I think that the undergraduate college degree is looked at in somewhat the same light.