tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post1711867012800294389..comments2024-03-14T04:16:20.472-07:00Comments on In Socrates' Wake: Higgins The Good Life: Worlds of PracticeMichael Cholbihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02012523929044363216noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-84874170799455633232013-05-16T22:44:14.183-07:002013-05-16T22:44:14.183-07:00I'm coming to the conversation a year late, bu...I'm coming to the conversation a year late, but still find some interesting observations here, after I recently read Higgins's book. I'm a secondary school teacher, and one interested in the philosophy of education. As a classicist (I teach Latin, inter alia) I'm sympathetic to much of Higgins's eudaimonistic ethics, though this book is my first foray into his other intellectual predecessors MacIntyre and Williams.<br /><br />Jim, you are not the first to draw an analogy between teaching in medicine. However, I suggest this analog is shaky at best. For one thing, it assumes that there is something wrong in the student, that there is a sickness to be cured, or an underlying condition to be managed. Yet there is some truth to the parallel. I think your analogy to parenting has some validity, but also some limitations: while a teacher sometimes acts in loco parentis, there are also ways in which the teacher-student relationship is different: it is limited in time, and usually limited in domain. That's why it's important not to draw out these kinds of analogies so far, though I admit they are certainly useful to a limited extent. <br /><br />There is perhaps more of a community of teachers in the pre-tertiary levels, at least in an (idealized?) sense. Yes, there is congeniality among teachers, but there is also sometimes a collegiality as well. I certainly think of myself as part of a teaching community. Perhaps this is due in part to the fact that Latin teachers are odd ducks and we birds of a feather tend to flock together. But in my experience it's not just limited to us Classicists; I count teachers of math, English, history as part of the community through which I experience the good of teaching.<br /><br />One aspect of Ch.2 that bears mention, in my opinion, is on page 57 in which H. writes, "In learning how to transform material into something excellent, the practitioner must also transform herself. The practitioner's self is the second ergon, if you will, of any practice." I think this is the crux of Higgins argument in this chapter, and is part of his argument for why teaching is good independent of the benefit to the student: because it is a benefit to the teacher as well.<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03914555237685823677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-31690660752667939632012-02-13T10:29:08.349-08:002012-02-13T10:29:08.349-08:00Jim, interesting reflections. You ask how we might...Jim, interesting reflections. You ask how we might understand Higgins' proposal that there are goods to be realized via a teaching community. One of the oddities of higher ed is that, for the most part, we teach alone. We humanists do much of our research alone too, but notice that we have no difficulty talking about the "philosophy community" or the "scholarly community." (See this older post of mine for similar thoughts: http://bit.ly/zElWDq)<br /><br /> I think of ISW as a community, but it seems to be rare for anyone to think of themselves as part of a teaching community. I think before we can imagine the goods that might be realized through a teaching community, we might ask what values have led to the situation in which teaching is seen as an almost entirely solitary act.Michael Cholbihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02012523929044363216noreply@blogger.com