In Bristol last week for my session in the Festival of Ideas, I met up with Wayne Geerling of La Trobe University in Melbourne. I met Wayne (pictured in Bristol's Watershed below) in December at an Erasmus University conference on Economics Made Fun, and was enthused by his passion for teaching economics in accessible ways. Since then he reviewed for me in the latest issue of The Business Economist a new book, The Heart of Teaching Economics, by Simon Bowmaker – the review is not yet online, but Wayne's take was that it had great insights for conventional teaching of the brightest students, but didn't address the use of innovative methods for less academically-inclined students. He's currently working with the Economics Network, sharing his approach using multi-media resources – building on their film-making project, for example.

Our discussion touched on another avenue I've been pursuing lately, namely the shocking way the economics curriculum lags behind the kind of exciting economics the academics are now engaged in (all the areas described in my previous book, The Soulful Science, and more recent developments such as the spread of experimental methods as brilliantly described in Poor Economics, for example). Undergraduate courses have not changed, are still taught to dull textbooks, and all the excitement of the subject is beaten out of students early. This makes it all the more surprising that funding for the Economics Network is being axed completely, and replacement funding currently seems uncertain. There are some rays of hope – one is the number of eminent economists signing up for Speakers for Schools, due to launch in October – but I hope to convene a major UK discussion on teaching economics, and will post more when I know more.

Anyway, I mentioned to Wayne that I'd volunteered to teach a lesson at my son's comprehensive school, to the first year sixth formers studying economics, and asked his advice. This was generously forthcoming, and he argued furthermore that economists who teach are more than eager to share the materials they use, whereas economists who research are much cagier. On reflection, it seemed likely this is true, because there is an innate non-rivalry in teaching: it's a person-to-student relationship, and even if a teacher hands over all their notes and materials that does not affect their own teaching output at all. In research, on the other hand, there is an innate rivalry which is amplified by the professional structures in universities.

The two need to march hand in hand, of course. This is a fruitful and exciting time for economics, with methodological improvements and a stimulating professional debate in many areas of research – and at the same time an upsurge in student numbers as enthusiastic young people seek to learn more about these extraordinary times we're living through. It would be a terrible waste of a good crisis for the economics profession to fail to channel that enthusiasm into future advances in knowledge. That will only happen through the conduit of a redrawn curriculum and better teaching. Like anybody who loves ideas, I know how decisive the impact of an inspirational teacher can be.