tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post5599428115981322851..comments2024-03-14T04:16:20.472-07:00Comments on In Socrates' Wake: On Course: Session 8-Students as Learners, Pt IMichael Cholbihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02012523929044363216noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-38267813252335150812009-02-20T05:47:00.000-08:002009-02-20T05:47:00.000-08:00I know I'm a bit late to the party, but teaching, ...I know I'm a bit late to the party, but teaching, reading, and writing have kept me from reading and writing about teaching in the last few weeks. I'm just catching up with the reading group now.<BR/><BR/>This discussion has me thinking anew about Socrates' saying that "philosophy begins in wonder." In the Socratic dialogues, Socrates' interlocutors begin without wonder. Euthyphro, for instance, <EM>knows</EM> what piety is. So Socrates begins by getting Euthyphro to elaborate on his own mental model of piety—by encouraging assimilation, not accomodation. It's when Euthyphro can no longer assimilate Socrates' "recalcitrant data" that <EM>he</EM> begins to wonder about piety, and that's when <EM>he</EM> begins philosophizing. Socrates' trick, it seems, is to move slowly enough that no recalcitrant data is rejected because "some people are weird and think about stupid things." Can we do the same?<BR/><BR/>"Minute-papers" and class discussion might be useful here. Give students time to elaborate a bit on their own mental models, and them get them to see that others have different models, or extended their models in different directions.david morrowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17628941227584383772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-24620152882240529172009-02-13T08:12:00.000-08:002009-02-13T08:12:00.000-08:00Sorry for the "post and run" -- it's been a crazy ...Sorry for the "post and run" -- it's been a crazy week packing for our trip (I'm in the airport now). Some thoughts:<BR/><BR/>Michael:<BR/><BR/>I have no doubt Lang is right (or at least that Piaget is, since he's really relying on him here). At the very least, as teachers we are doing some serious violence to their pre-existing ways of organizing and sifting through data. <BR/><BR/>I agree with you, as I noted, that it's hopeless to try to "full frontal assault" and try to persuade (or shame, as many teachers do) students into conceptual thinking. I think they don't just glaze over -- I think they start to resent it. <BR/><BR/>On your second point, I think I'm mostly with you. Unfortunately, especially in ethics, we focus on dilemmas and problem situations. So we try to get students to focus on what is problematic in their thinking, or unfinished, or whatever. We want them to see that their thinking fails to capture this or that thought experiment, or that the TE reveals inconsistencies in their conceptual schemes, and as a result we needle them into rethinking their convictions. What we can hide when we do this is the large area of unproblematic intuitive ground that they start off with, which is not in need of accommodation. So we can make it seem as if ethics, say, is all about theoretical reflection and little about intuitive response. <BR/><BR/>Perhaps emphasizing this large body of unproblematic intuitive groundwork can help to make whatever accommodations we later want them to make less threatening. <BR/><BR/>But still, even though I agree here, there's still the issue of the fact that students will, in fact, resist those leaps of theoretical fancy. Or they may just say "but what's the chance that I'll wind up in one of those stupid TE situations, anyway?" As a result, they question the theory on pretty much any level. <BR/><BR/>Hi Phil -<BR/><BR/>Nice to see you. I think you are cheating on your "no english" pledge, no? <BR/><BR/>You raise some valid points. But when you say "just let them learn the philosophy" I get the impression that you are indeed thinking of it as simply a number of disjointed facts, no? <BR/><BR/>I guess here I'll have to admit that I'm partial to Plato's argument here in the Meno: that there's no real sense in suggesting that the student "knows" the Pythagorean Theorem if the student merely memorizes what number of spout if given two numbers to start with (the measurements of the two shorter sides). Without understanding how/why those numbers lead to the third, something seems missing -- the skill. <BR/><BR/>But here we're back to the original problem, in a way. How do you get students to learn the skill of philosophy when they see no point to it? <BR/><BR/>Of course, you might suggest: what if there *is* no point to it. As you note, all professors think that their subject matter is the only one that matters. Perhaps, but I think there's a baseline issue here. I don't force students into my class. They enroll. Sometimes because they must (a required ethics course). But even then, the school doesn't force them -- they matriculate at the school, and those are the requirements. So I can't assume that they don't care, so I won't teach them the skill they don't value. I'm taught to teach philosophy -- which is partly a skill. So that's what I must do. <BR/><BR/>So how do we do that in a way that meets Piaget's worries?Chris Panzahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01656795570624714115noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-64586650692311917992009-02-06T06:01:00.000-08:002009-02-06T06:01:00.000-08:00I just linked over here from A Ku, and I've never ...I just linked over here from A Ku, and I've never taught philosophy, so I hope I'm not too out of place here. But I found one aspect of this post very striking, as it relates to something I remember feeling when I took a philosophy class.<BR/><BR/>The problem is: why do philosophy lecturers have to be so demanding? From the student's perspective, philosophy is just one class among many. Philosophy teachers tell us it's the most basic, the most important subject of all, but guess what? History teachers tell us the same thing! English teachers never cease to remind us that grasp of language is key to success. Science lecturers are so convinced that science is more important than anything else, they don't attempt to persuade us, they just assume it.<BR/><BR/>So, as a student, we are bombarded by people who have devoted their careers and lives to certain disciplines, and who try to make us understand why theirs is the most important (in their life and ours).<BR/><BR/>What I remember from my philosophy course was my teacher being disappointed that I could never take Heidegger's side in an argument. To this day, I still can't; don't get Heidegger, probably never will. And I felt/feel resentment that I should have to. Because, if truth be told, up till postgraduate level, what philosophy courses teach is actually history of philosophy (correct me if I'm wrong here). I could pass the exams with no difficulty (if with no flair) by learning Heidegger's positions as facts and recounting them in exams with relevant criticisms (also learned).<BR/><BR/>So while it is certainly useful to point out the relations between whatever bit of philosophy you're teaching and assumptions that students actually hold, I don't really see the value in attempting to "attack their models" or ask students to "engage in a constant stream of accommodation". Why not allow students to just learn philosophy? Why try to force them to believe it?<BR/><BR/>Phil Handchinaphilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14572591745611690731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8070355695530434450.post-5431995741121595472009-02-04T08:50:00.000-08:002009-02-04T08:50:00.000-08:00Thanks for your very thoughtful and thorough post,...Thanks for your very thoughtful and thorough post, Chris. What I know from the literature on teaching and learning suggests that Lang is correct that learners are very good at accommodating recalcitrant information so as to save their existing conceptual schemes, and so (as you point out) we philosophers, who are trying to get students to critically evaluate their conceptual schemes, are working in rough pedagogical terrain. <BR/><BR/>I'm not sure I have a solution to the challenge, only a few ideas to share:<BR/>First, I think it's basically hopeless to try to <I>persuade</I> students of the value of conceptual overhauls, etc. by talking about it and talking about critical thinking. In my experience, students' eyes glaze over. What's needed are ways to help them <I>discover</I> these things. Our task is to lead them to this discovery in ways that are not heavy handed or didactic.<BR/><BR/>Second, I think it can be important to emphasize that perhaps accommodation is limited. When teaching ethics, for example, I try to underscore to students that the conclusions we reach in ethical theory or concerning controversies in practical ethics probably should be constrained by our core convictions (or as people are saying a lot these days, by the 'platitudes' that constitute these domains). So any moral theory that claims or implies that one person's well-being or interests should be accorded greater significance than other persons' — absent some compelling moral reason to the contrary — is most likely one we should reject. Or any argument in practical ethics that assumes or implies that killing human beings is morally unproblematic is an argument we should reject, etc. This takes a bit of the edge off the idea that philosophers question everything just for the sake of questioning it. There are, in a broad sense, 'facts' to which our investigations should be faithful.<BR/><BR/>Lastly, I think role models are useful here. A reason that people still teach Plato/Socrates (and maybe Descartes too) is that students find these figures invigorating precisely because of the relentlessness with which they attacked the conceptual frameworks of their eras. I've had some success by asking students who the Socrateses are in our society -- or if there are any. (They sometimes put forth names like Chomsky.) This can work because I think students are pretty self-aware about the origins of their own philosophical convictions. They recognize they live in a pluralistic society and they see their own convictions as products of media and parental influence, etc. So they sometimes implicitly recognize the need for Socrates-like figures in their world, and this makes my invitation to engage in investigations that mimic Socratic inquiry a bit less foreign or threatening.Michael Cholbihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02012523929044363216noreply@blogger.com