The second smartest person in the room?

I very much enjoyed this letter to Janet Napolitano, the recently appointed head of the University of California, from Berkeley faculty member Michael O'Hare. I won't comment on the significance of the head of homeland security being appointed to lead a system the most indelible recent image of which is security officers wielding pepper spray against student protestors.

What I really liked was the pithy way O'Hare summed up the state of college teaching:

For the most part, we are teaching students how to be the second-smartest person in a room with one person who knows the truth, but no-one in the big world pays for that skill: you get paid to be good at finding new truths, and making other people smart.

O'Hare's description resonates with my picture of what is often thought of as a "good student": someone who knows how to echo the instructor, but is completely helpless when given the autonomy to investigate things on their own. In my article on intentional learning, I call these performing learners:

Becko's big shout out

So turns out one of ISW's own, Becko Copenhaver, has been named teacher of the year at Lewis and Clark College. Congratulations (obviously!) -- and check out a video and interview with Becko here.

3 questions about asking questions

I suspect we all agree that questions are at the heart of philosophy.  I was therefore struck by Maryellen Weimer's report of a conversation she had with a colleague about the use of questions in the classroom.

The conversation started with concerns over the quantity and quality of questions students ask—those earnest questions about what’s going to be on the exam and gently demanding queries about what the teacher “wants” in almost any kind of written assignment. Those questions are important to students, but they certainly are not the questions of curious learners nor are they the type of questions that motivate learning and intellectual development. 

More advice to students: How to write a #$%* essay

Following up on Monday's advice to students about how to talk to professors about their grades, James Lenman offers students the following invaluable advice concerning essay writing:

How to Write a Crap Philosophy Essay: A Brief Guide for Students

1. Always begin your essay along these lines: “Since the very dawn of time the problem of free will has been considered by many of the greatest and deepest thinkers in history.”

Free advice to students about talking to professors about grades, part I

I just finished my grading for the term, and as is typical, a number of students approached me as the term wound down to discuss their grades and how to improve them. These discussions generally focus on these two concerns:

1. Students want to improve their grades by having me change the grading standards or expectations in some ways.
2. Students want to improve their grades by performing better in class.

In my experience, students often handle these discussions poorly, especially in regard to concern 1. Here I have some advice for students about concern 1 — I'll save advice about concern 2 for another post.

Do you teach ....?

Teaching Philosophy is introducing a new feature to each of its issues. The journal will be publishing articles entitled 'How to Teach...' Each article will be an overview of how to teach one of the standard courses in the philosophy curriculum. The basic motivation for these articles is to help those who have never taught courses in a given area of philosophy prepare to teach such courses, as well as giving those experienced in teaching courses in a given area different models for courses in that area.

We already have an article scheduled on how to teach critical thinking. In the next few years, I hope to publish 'How to Teach ...' articles on the following courses:

• ancient philosophy
• modern philosophy
• the Continental tradition
• Asian philosophy
• logic
• metaphysics
• epistemology
• philosophy of science
• feminist philosophy
• bioethics, medical ethics, health care ethics
• information technology ethics

If you might be interested in writing such a piece, please contact me: mjcholbi*at*csupomona*dot*edu.

Below the fold are additional guidelines for the 'How to Teach...' articles.

CFP: Experiential learning in the philosophy classroom

The deadline for submitting abstracts for this most intriguing edited collection is July 19. Details below the fold.