The guiding I was referring to (from later in my education, at a very fancy prep school I must admit) isn’t guiding in this sense; mostly my teachers threw the book down on the table and let us hash it out ourselves. Which is to say, who needs teachers if you’ve got students to learn from? [I was no longer involved in hard sciences by this point, i should also note.] That was a true process of exploration, in contrast to the “let’s-explore-but-we-have-a-definite-goal-and-I-will-make-sure-we-get-there” approach of my earlier schooling.

I’m hanging on to my ideas that knowledge transmission = hierarchy, but with the caveat that yes, of course, you’re right that teachers can’t really impose thoughts; only, in practice continued resistance is rather difficult. I think that’s tied to training; schools are not about transmitting knowledge, but about transmitting ways of interacting with knowledge. Which is why most schools teach by lecture or ‘guiding,’ and the schools of the ruling classes teach students to guide themselves.

The idea of teacher as guide strikes me as having at least as much potential for hierarchy, possibly more, because the person being guided is continually being nudged by the guide, which may make it harder for them to sort out their own responses from the direction of the guide.