On the most basic level, the simple designation of “student” and “teacher” is inherently an adversarial distinction. Like any dichotomy where one side holds a significant amount of power over the other, especially in an institutional setting like a university,  the basic conflict stems from necessary authority. That authority, the teacher, doesn’t have to be authoritative, but as long as we maintain labels with associated definitions and histories the hierarchy of control remains intact. I wonder, in thinking through this question, whether the associations of teacher and student would be different if the setting were, for instance, a free and open to the public lecture held in a library. Those who would show up would be momentary students to the lecturer, but that specific institutional dynamic would be gone; still, there is an implicit understanding that one side offers potential knowledge that the other side is either interested in or wants to directly take in some transactional way.

I would say that this nature of adversarial relations is immediate, from the moment of taking of either role, rather than happening in some organic, long-term fashion. Any further adversarial interactions or developments between teacher and student would merely be in addition to the foundational conflict/power imbalance. In that sense, I do think there’s an inherently negative quality to the distinction, though it’s one that can be significantly altered in such a way that the illusion of equal standings becomes a possibility in the classroom. I write illusion because, truly, at the end of the day there is an inescapable difference between teacher and student, and it’s a difference determined or brought upon by either greater institutional forces or through the narratives of societal roles that we are past the point of ever really removing ourselves from.