In this paper I explore the possibility of teaching to be something more than a policing or confirmation of inequality. I will, drawing on Jacques Rancière’s work, in the first part of the paper, argue that the act of teaching is a necessary break with common sense in that it has to start from an idea of equality of intelligence. In particular, I explore the idea that assuming the equality of intelligence cannot be contained within a lesson that explains something, rather it can only be assumed through a story, in a narrative that is about making something public, making it present so that we can relate to it. In the second part of the paper I explore in detail the idea of teaching as storytelling, particularly the notion that it is not primarily the content of the story that counts but its form that creates the possibility of emancipation.