AbstractTeaching in substantive areas of planning has become increasingly calculative. Students have been taught to use techniques, but not to ask whether they are asking the right questions.A new course which attempted to instead emphasize a meditative approach to transportation planning is described. A theme of exposing and criticizing assumptions—bubble bursting—lies at the heart of the course. Philosophical theories were taught to help accomplish this, and problem setting was shown to be essentially a question of ethics. The shortcomings of current systems analysis approaches in transportation were discussed, and the alternative of a wider form of systems research suggested by Churchman was explored. The interrelationships between transportation and related systems were stressed throughout the course.Students expressed some concern that the course did not emphasize the practical side of transportation planning, but responded positively to the new perspectives for criticism that were introduced. Teaching the course demonstrated that there is a useful role for courses which expose and criticize assumptions rather than merely teach techniques and which reveal the essentially ethical nature of planning and all social inquiry; and that if we want future generations of thinking planners, we need to teach them how to th