What do you believe is the purpose of grades?
External sources (Grad Schools, Jobs, etc)
43%
Motivate students
14%
Evaluate students
43%
Total votes: 14
In Socrates' Wake
Episode 2: Martha Nussbaum, Gabriel Marcel, and Glenn Beck
There’s really not much in the second chapter of Nussbaum’s book that I disagree with – in fact, I found myself doing a lot of affirmative nodding and muttering “preach it!” to myself under my breath as I read along. I’ll first mention a positive reaction I had to the chapter, and then focus on a concern that I break into two parts.
Much of what Nussbaum says reminds me strongly of the thinking of Gabriel Marcel (who I also tend to enjoy quite a bit). For Marcel, some approaches to life are ‘problem’ oriented (Nussbaum’s ‘growth’ model), and see things/situations as ‘problems to be solved’. Marcel thought that such an approach inherently involved drawing up a separation between the agent and the problem, and the cultivation of ‘techniques’ possessed by the agent to control and/or master the problem/thing. Other approaches are ‘mystery’ oriented (closer to Nussbaum’s human development model), and see things (or some one or more things) as not reducible to a formula or complete reductive understanding. They always involve an overlap between the agent and the issue in view, as opposed to a separation, and they do not involve techniques of mastery or control, but rather carefully cultivated attitudes (Marcel’s ethics) and abilities like creativity, faith, hope and love.
It’s not hard to see that approaching life always as a ‘problem’ leads a person to see others as means to an end (as they are objects to be controlled), always involves attempts to reduce others to ‘formulas’ and categories that can be ‘understood’ in a reductive manner, and so on, whereas seeing relations with others as in some sense involving mystery involves a kind of basic respect for the irreducibility of the other, and a commitment to cultivating critical thinking, creativity, tolerance, and love in one’s life. Clearly, the Marcel/Nussbaum approach is superior for the fostering of a strong democracy, whereas the remaining approach is destructive to it. I agree and concur.
Thinking in terms of respecting ‘the other’ made me think of a specific set of others – my students and their parents. Many of them, in Southwest Missouri where I teach, would not react well to what Nussbaum (or Marcel) says. Moreover, it struck me that Marcel-reading philosophers shouldn’t be Nussbaum’s intended audience – my students and their parents should be. I’m already convinced by the need for the Humanities. They aren’t, and frankly they are the ones who will lead the market-driven end to the Humanities that Nussbaum fears. So I tried to re-read the chapter through their eyes. Although I think I could come up with a lot of responses from their point of view, I’ll focus just on two questions or concerns that would arise quickly.
I. Objection One: I Pay a LOT of Money for College, and Nussbaum’s Concerns Aren’t My Own
We can read Nussbaum’s chapter as focusing on all private and/or public education, primary and secondary, and/or college. Clearly she means all of it, but some specific attention is given to colleges. I teach at a private liberal arts college. Many of my students and their parents are not interested in paying 20K a year to assure that democracy flourishes, or that students cultivate capacities that may or may not (in their view) lead to human flourishing. Instead, they are there to learn a trade, to earn the degree that functions as the gate keeper to the middle class and a low chance of future unemployment. Twenty thousand bucks is a lot of money, and let’s face it – my school is cheap.
Given that reality, how do we convince those in the audience that the Humanities are needed? Of course, the obvious way to go is to convince people of the instrumental good that these skills play in assisting people in their future economic pursuits. So we convince them that all those philosophy and romance literature courses really are, in the end, getting them the maximum bang for their buck.
Personally, I think as Humanities educators we do a poor job in outlining why this is actually true (me included). However, with Marcel in mind, I wonder: do we even want to reduce the Humanities to an instrumental good, to see it as yet another “technique” in the tool-kit of a person who already sees the world and others as ‘problems to be solved’ (controlled/manipulated)? I think Nussbaum would clearly say no, but I am not left, at this point in the book, with a good way of attacking this concern. I’m also left thinking that we are faced with a paradox that is similar to the paradox of virtue: how do you get people to approach the Humanities as a valued embrace of the mysterious if they are not already disposed to think this way? If they are not so disposed, what do we do then?
II. Objection Two: Isn’t Nussbaum Just a Card-Carrying Liberal?
Of course, one way is to appeal to a sense of justice that people have already from the start. In fact, Nussbaum spends a lot of time pointing out that growth orientation does not necessarily lead to increases of liberty, health, education, just distribution of resources, and so on. My imagined audience might well agree, suggesting that growth is not a sufficient condition for the more robust set of goods Nussbaum prizes.
However, I can easily imagine some of my students and their parents agreeing, but thinking that in the US we already have the kinds of minimum political entitlements that, with the growth model, suffice for justice. If there are inequities beyond this, this is not injustice but a matter of choice on the part of individuals (work harder!). According to these folks, the growth model + negative liberties are sufficient. To argue otherwise, they will object, is to inject a clear political – liberal -- aim into the education system. At that point you’re trying to train my kid (or my friend) to be a good liberal. Let’s face it -- that’s not going to play well on FOX and on Glenn Beck, and frankly the audience Nussbaum needs to hit to achieve her aim importantly includes that demographic.
So at this point, we’re left with an instrumental approach or a justice approach. The former caves into the very problem itself, the latter approach requires ‘going liberal’ (sort of like ‘going rogue’). Is that liberal approach present? To quote a famous speaker, “You betcha!” Just to mention one case: Nussbaum talks about how ‘fear’ can operate as the motive to suppress critical thinking, and that the adherents to the growth-model can push for the suppression of such thinking and such education out of a worry that basic injustices (on a number of levels) springing from growth-based systems will become apparent, and such transparency is destabilizing for the growth model. For the American conservative reader, this will sound off the wall, and an educational system (the Humanities!) that is based in this kind of thinking will be seen as indoctrinating in aim.
In sum, and again, I love this book – its message and its aim. However, given that I do truly care about both of these things, I so far worry about the delivery here. My concern is that non-true believers are not going to be motivated by much of what Nussbaum says – perhaps they may even be less disposed to the Humanities in the end.
These are all large problems I am pointing to here – not just for Nussbaum, but for all of us. Admittedly, I have no idea how to solve them without falling back into the trap of arguing for the instrumental value of the Humanities, and as I’ve already suggested, there is something not-quite authentic about that approach – in fact, when I use it, I am always under the impression that I am not being entirely genuine, and it bugs me.
Much of what Nussbaum says reminds me strongly of the thinking of Gabriel Marcel (who I also tend to enjoy quite a bit). For Marcel, some approaches to life are ‘problem’ oriented (Nussbaum’s ‘growth’ model), and see things/situations as ‘problems to be solved’. Marcel thought that such an approach inherently involved drawing up a separation between the agent and the problem, and the cultivation of ‘techniques’ possessed by the agent to control and/or master the problem/thing. Other approaches are ‘mystery’ oriented (closer to Nussbaum’s human development model), and see things (or some one or more things) as not reducible to a formula or complete reductive understanding. They always involve an overlap between the agent and the issue in view, as opposed to a separation, and they do not involve techniques of mastery or control, but rather carefully cultivated attitudes (Marcel’s ethics) and abilities like creativity, faith, hope and love.
It’s not hard to see that approaching life always as a ‘problem’ leads a person to see others as means to an end (as they are objects to be controlled), always involves attempts to reduce others to ‘formulas’ and categories that can be ‘understood’ in a reductive manner, and so on, whereas seeing relations with others as in some sense involving mystery involves a kind of basic respect for the irreducibility of the other, and a commitment to cultivating critical thinking, creativity, tolerance, and love in one’s life. Clearly, the Marcel/Nussbaum approach is superior for the fostering of a strong democracy, whereas the remaining approach is destructive to it. I agree and concur.
Thinking in terms of respecting ‘the other’ made me think of a specific set of others – my students and their parents. Many of them, in Southwest Missouri where I teach, would not react well to what Nussbaum (or Marcel) says. Moreover, it struck me that Marcel-reading philosophers shouldn’t be Nussbaum’s intended audience – my students and their parents should be. I’m already convinced by the need for the Humanities. They aren’t, and frankly they are the ones who will lead the market-driven end to the Humanities that Nussbaum fears. So I tried to re-read the chapter through their eyes. Although I think I could come up with a lot of responses from their point of view, I’ll focus just on two questions or concerns that would arise quickly.
I. Objection One: I Pay a LOT of Money for College, and Nussbaum’s Concerns Aren’t My Own
We can read Nussbaum’s chapter as focusing on all private and/or public education, primary and secondary, and/or college. Clearly she means all of it, but some specific attention is given to colleges. I teach at a private liberal arts college. Many of my students and their parents are not interested in paying 20K a year to assure that democracy flourishes, or that students cultivate capacities that may or may not (in their view) lead to human flourishing. Instead, they are there to learn a trade, to earn the degree that functions as the gate keeper to the middle class and a low chance of future unemployment. Twenty thousand bucks is a lot of money, and let’s face it – my school is cheap.
Given that reality, how do we convince those in the audience that the Humanities are needed? Of course, the obvious way to go is to convince people of the instrumental good that these skills play in assisting people in their future economic pursuits. So we convince them that all those philosophy and romance literature courses really are, in the end, getting them the maximum bang for their buck.
Personally, I think as Humanities educators we do a poor job in outlining why this is actually true (me included). However, with Marcel in mind, I wonder: do we even want to reduce the Humanities to an instrumental good, to see it as yet another “technique” in the tool-kit of a person who already sees the world and others as ‘problems to be solved’ (controlled/manipulated)? I think Nussbaum would clearly say no, but I am not left, at this point in the book, with a good way of attacking this concern. I’m also left thinking that we are faced with a paradox that is similar to the paradox of virtue: how do you get people to approach the Humanities as a valued embrace of the mysterious if they are not already disposed to think this way? If they are not so disposed, what do we do then?
II. Objection Two: Isn’t Nussbaum Just a Card-Carrying Liberal?
Of course, one way is to appeal to a sense of justice that people have already from the start. In fact, Nussbaum spends a lot of time pointing out that growth orientation does not necessarily lead to increases of liberty, health, education, just distribution of resources, and so on. My imagined audience might well agree, suggesting that growth is not a sufficient condition for the more robust set of goods Nussbaum prizes.
However, I can easily imagine some of my students and their parents agreeing, but thinking that in the US we already have the kinds of minimum political entitlements that, with the growth model, suffice for justice. If there are inequities beyond this, this is not injustice but a matter of choice on the part of individuals (work harder!). According to these folks, the growth model + negative liberties are sufficient. To argue otherwise, they will object, is to inject a clear political – liberal -- aim into the education system. At that point you’re trying to train my kid (or my friend) to be a good liberal. Let’s face it -- that’s not going to play well on FOX and on Glenn Beck, and frankly the audience Nussbaum needs to hit to achieve her aim importantly includes that demographic.
So at this point, we’re left with an instrumental approach or a justice approach. The former caves into the very problem itself, the latter approach requires ‘going liberal’ (sort of like ‘going rogue’). Is that liberal approach present? To quote a famous speaker, “You betcha!” Just to mention one case: Nussbaum talks about how ‘fear’ can operate as the motive to suppress critical thinking, and that the adherents to the growth-model can push for the suppression of such thinking and such education out of a worry that basic injustices (on a number of levels) springing from growth-based systems will become apparent, and such transparency is destabilizing for the growth model. For the American conservative reader, this will sound off the wall, and an educational system (the Humanities!) that is based in this kind of thinking will be seen as indoctrinating in aim.
In sum, and again, I love this book – its message and its aim. However, given that I do truly care about both of these things, I so far worry about the delivery here. My concern is that non-true believers are not going to be motivated by much of what Nussbaum says – perhaps they may even be less disposed to the Humanities in the end.
These are all large problems I am pointing to here – not just for Nussbaum, but for all of us. Admittedly, I have no idea how to solve them without falling back into the trap of arguing for the instrumental value of the Humanities, and as I’ve already suggested, there is something not-quite authentic about that approach – in fact, when I use it, I am always under the impression that I am not being entirely genuine, and it bugs me.
Not for Profit, episode 3: "We are creating the Orwellian state!"
Nussbaum argues that if we want democratic societies to remain viable, vibrant, and healthy then we need to reassert the foundational role that the humanities (this includes the arts) plays in our educational systems. Citizens need to have a basic understanding of the polis including the various norms and values that are the foundation of the polis. Her basic thesis is that incorporating the humanities in our education is essential for having citizens obtain the necessary knowledge and expertise to be effective (skillful) citizens in a political and social system that recognizes and enhances our basic autonomy as persons to be able to knowingly and freely develop lives that are flourishing and worthwhile. We need to recognize that free market based economic institutions, understood within the philosophical context developed by Rousseau, Kant, Rawls, and Kylmicka are fundamental to the development and implementation of healthy democratic societies. As Lewis Feuer argues in his Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism, there is a close correlation between the development of competitive, capitalistic free markets and democratic institutions.
Having spent thirty-five years in manufacturing, I have a special interest in, and I think unique perspective on, her arguments. I am going to defend the thesis that businesspeople should study the humanities because doing so enables us to establish and maintain healthy economic institutions that are maximally profitable, stable and viable that will enhance the ability of people to fulfill their organizational roles and to lead lives that are flourishing. After all, being a member of an economic organization is similar to being a citizen in a State. As a businessperson I support Nussbaum’s main argument in favor of a sound education in the humanities. Further, I maintain, as does Rousseau, that in order for people to be free there needs to be a economic baseline below which we do not allow anyone to fall and that the only way to ensure that this economic threshold is established is to focus on our common humanity which can only be understood by studying the humanities and understanding the inherent relationship between economics and the humanities. How we understand and treat people positively or negatively impacts the costs of doing business. Nussbaum recognizes that there is a relationship between the humanities, healthy and sustainable democratic institutions, and economics/business growth and sustainability in her criticism of Obama and the growing trend in education to emphasize those courses of study that are relevant to being economically successful, but she does not fully develop this crucial point. However, she does not consider the fundamental Rousseauean idea concerning the relationship of an economic baseline below which someone may not fall and human freedom and the role that knowledge of the humanities can play in recognizing this crucial point. But this is a small oversight, easily redressed.
To be successful we need to be mindful of the pluralistic societies within which we operate our businesses, as well as the culturally diverse makeup of our organizations. The organizations that I worked in, both as an hourly paid employee through various managerial positions including Director of Operations, were populated with people from many different ethnic, cultural, gender, political, economic, and religious backgrounds. This pluralistic working environment presented many unique and interesting challenges relative to how to effectively manage my areas of responsibility. An example of this occurred when I was trying to settle a problem with the working relationship between two employees who had recently emigrated from Mexico. They came from the same area in Mexico and were related familially. Furthermore, they had a very different conception of who had the authority to settle this issue then I did. From my perspective, I was the Plant Manager; I was the law! If I say this is the way it is going to be, then that is the way it is going to be. What I quickly came to realize was that even though they recognized me as the Plant Manager with authority on how to run the operation, I had limited authority to settle the personal dispute between them that was affecting their working relationship, the real authority was a ‘father figure’ back in Mexico whom they both recognized as having the final decision on how this particular dispute would be settled. So they took my solution and ran it past him to see if he agreed. Fortunately, this person agreed with me, and the issue was resolved, not because I was the Plant Manager, but because their recognized authority figure agreed with me. This experience was an eye-opener. I have many more such stories that demonstrate the need to know who you are dealing with. This knowledge goes well beyond simply viewing them as an employee filling some organizational function and ‘knowing’ them only through this role. A firm grounding in the humanities can open us up to the many diverse, and possibly conflicting, conceptual schemas and world-views and make us aware that some compromising and a restructuring of views may need to take place in order to forge good working relationships and a healthy environment.
I am not a fan of overly hierarchical institutional systems. I believe that they violate the idea of autonomy by placing decision-making in the hands of other people and create inefficiencies and levels of unnecessary costs in the operation of a business. These inefficiencies and costs must be eliminated as far as possible. I spent much of my managerial career ‘flattening’ organizations, in part by removing levels of management and restructuring and redesigning the manufacturing processes and the processes that affected them (sales, engineering, HR, etc.) and placing day to day operational decision-making into the hands of the people manufacturing the product and ultimately controlling the processes. It is my contention that people have the right to participate in the decision-making processes that affect their lives therefore I support participatory democratic practices in business and structuring organizations accordingly. But, in order to be successful in setting up these types of democratic work environments one must know the norms and values that define the people making up the group. It is an interesting challenge to develop self-directing work teams made up of people from many diverse backgrounds. Business oftentimes fails to maximize profit opportunities because they do not adequately understand the relationship between recognizing people for whom they are - people who have a narrative, deserving of our respect, and capable of being autonomous - being capable of defining what makes a life significant and developing and implanting plans to achieve such a life - and profit. What I mean by not ‘recognizing people for whom they are’, is that our present system tends to view people mainly in terms of economic criteria associated with Weber’s three P’s (property. power, and prestige). To incorporate an idea from Marcusse, we have become too one-dimensional in how we view people. We try to fit everyone into a world-view defined solely in economic terms and values. What is my/our market value?
I have seen this attitude in my students. Oftentimes, at the first meeting of each of my intro courses at the start of a new semester I ask my students to complete the sentence, ‘The purpose of a college education is to…..’ I have never keep formal data on their answers, but the vast majority answer along the lines of “to gain the skills and knowledge to get a good job,’ ‘ to get a job,’ ‘to get into a career/profession that will enable me to get the good things in life,’ etc. When we discuss what these good things are the answers include getting a nice home, purchasing an expensive car, going on nice vacations and possibly owning vacation property, advancement and recognition within a career/profession and the community, a family, etc. There is a tendency to equate the material things that we try to accumulate and associate with achievement and success with what it means to live a good life. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting these things, but very seldom does an answer focus on increasing one’s knowledge and becoming a more well-rounded and mature person by studying the humanities or the arts can help achieve those economic goals by placing them in a well-reasoned perspective. Many students seem to value the study of humanities as instrumentally necessary to achieve their economic goals. Many of them take them because they have to, not because they want to. They do not appreciate the intrinsic value that humanities and the arts might have in helping them to understand their situatedness within the global community they are a part of and how our individual lives are interwoven with the lives of others.
I would suggest that this failure to appreciate the intrinsic value in the humanities results in students viewing each other as rivals instead of ‘fellow-travelers’ as they pursue their educational goals. We are seeing the demise of what Paul Goodman referred to as the ‘community of scholars.’ Instead this community ought to be extended into our economic institutions. This adversarial relationship is transferred to the economic sphere when they start to compete for jobs and advancement within their careers/organizations. The higher up one goes in an organization the fewer people are your peers, and the top is very lonely. As Marx so well demonstrated in “Estranged Labor,” this process alienates us from each other and from ourselves. We understand and value ourselves only in terms of our economic value to the system. Even politics is being reduced to this level – how many jobs are being created, bailing out organizations that are inefficient, but’ too large to fail,’ etc. We are even beginning to look for cultural scapegoats as the cause of these issues – just look at the illegal immigration issue being propagated by commentators like Lou Dobbs as the main cause associated with the demise of the middle class.
Let me be rather blunt here- as we turn away from developing and appreciating an understanding of who we are through the humanities we are creating the Orwellian State! In order to reverse this trend we need to understand economics through the prism of the humanities, not view the humanities through the prism of economics. If we want to have the best from those we hire, we need to know those we hire – we need to know their narratives regarding their ethnic, cultural, religious, etc. background. People do not fit into tidy, neat little conceptual boxes of understanding. Besides being able to understand what makes life significant in general, we need to see how our conception fits with our individual employees conceptions, not vice versa. We need to find an overlapping consensus concerning goals, objectives, and how to obtain them, to incorporate a Rawlsian notion. This is hard work, but it pays off because getting the best from our people will result in an increased opportunity to create wealth and create and maintain a stable, healthy democratic society where everyone is living a viable and flourishing life.
Having spent thirty-five years in manufacturing, I have a special interest in, and I think unique perspective on, her arguments. I am going to defend the thesis that businesspeople should study the humanities because doing so enables us to establish and maintain healthy economic institutions that are maximally profitable, stable and viable that will enhance the ability of people to fulfill their organizational roles and to lead lives that are flourishing. After all, being a member of an economic organization is similar to being a citizen in a State. As a businessperson I support Nussbaum’s main argument in favor of a sound education in the humanities. Further, I maintain, as does Rousseau, that in order for people to be free there needs to be a economic baseline below which we do not allow anyone to fall and that the only way to ensure that this economic threshold is established is to focus on our common humanity which can only be understood by studying the humanities and understanding the inherent relationship between economics and the humanities. How we understand and treat people positively or negatively impacts the costs of doing business. Nussbaum recognizes that there is a relationship between the humanities, healthy and sustainable democratic institutions, and economics/business growth and sustainability in her criticism of Obama and the growing trend in education to emphasize those courses of study that are relevant to being economically successful, but she does not fully develop this crucial point. However, she does not consider the fundamental Rousseauean idea concerning the relationship of an economic baseline below which someone may not fall and human freedom and the role that knowledge of the humanities can play in recognizing this crucial point. But this is a small oversight, easily redressed.
To be successful we need to be mindful of the pluralistic societies within which we operate our businesses, as well as the culturally diverse makeup of our organizations. The organizations that I worked in, both as an hourly paid employee through various managerial positions including Director of Operations, were populated with people from many different ethnic, cultural, gender, political, economic, and religious backgrounds. This pluralistic working environment presented many unique and interesting challenges relative to how to effectively manage my areas of responsibility. An example of this occurred when I was trying to settle a problem with the working relationship between two employees who had recently emigrated from Mexico. They came from the same area in Mexico and were related familially. Furthermore, they had a very different conception of who had the authority to settle this issue then I did. From my perspective, I was the Plant Manager; I was the law! If I say this is the way it is going to be, then that is the way it is going to be. What I quickly came to realize was that even though they recognized me as the Plant Manager with authority on how to run the operation, I had limited authority to settle the personal dispute between them that was affecting their working relationship, the real authority was a ‘father figure’ back in Mexico whom they both recognized as having the final decision on how this particular dispute would be settled. So they took my solution and ran it past him to see if he agreed. Fortunately, this person agreed with me, and the issue was resolved, not because I was the Plant Manager, but because their recognized authority figure agreed with me. This experience was an eye-opener. I have many more such stories that demonstrate the need to know who you are dealing with. This knowledge goes well beyond simply viewing them as an employee filling some organizational function and ‘knowing’ them only through this role. A firm grounding in the humanities can open us up to the many diverse, and possibly conflicting, conceptual schemas and world-views and make us aware that some compromising and a restructuring of views may need to take place in order to forge good working relationships and a healthy environment.
I am not a fan of overly hierarchical institutional systems. I believe that they violate the idea of autonomy by placing decision-making in the hands of other people and create inefficiencies and levels of unnecessary costs in the operation of a business. These inefficiencies and costs must be eliminated as far as possible. I spent much of my managerial career ‘flattening’ organizations, in part by removing levels of management and restructuring and redesigning the manufacturing processes and the processes that affected them (sales, engineering, HR, etc.) and placing day to day operational decision-making into the hands of the people manufacturing the product and ultimately controlling the processes. It is my contention that people have the right to participate in the decision-making processes that affect their lives therefore I support participatory democratic practices in business and structuring organizations accordingly. But, in order to be successful in setting up these types of democratic work environments one must know the norms and values that define the people making up the group. It is an interesting challenge to develop self-directing work teams made up of people from many diverse backgrounds. Business oftentimes fails to maximize profit opportunities because they do not adequately understand the relationship between recognizing people for whom they are - people who have a narrative, deserving of our respect, and capable of being autonomous - being capable of defining what makes a life significant and developing and implanting plans to achieve such a life - and profit. What I mean by not ‘recognizing people for whom they are’, is that our present system tends to view people mainly in terms of economic criteria associated with Weber’s three P’s (property. power, and prestige). To incorporate an idea from Marcusse, we have become too one-dimensional in how we view people. We try to fit everyone into a world-view defined solely in economic terms and values. What is my/our market value?
I have seen this attitude in my students. Oftentimes, at the first meeting of each of my intro courses at the start of a new semester I ask my students to complete the sentence, ‘The purpose of a college education is to…..’ I have never keep formal data on their answers, but the vast majority answer along the lines of “to gain the skills and knowledge to get a good job,’ ‘ to get a job,’ ‘to get into a career/profession that will enable me to get the good things in life,’ etc. When we discuss what these good things are the answers include getting a nice home, purchasing an expensive car, going on nice vacations and possibly owning vacation property, advancement and recognition within a career/profession and the community, a family, etc. There is a tendency to equate the material things that we try to accumulate and associate with achievement and success with what it means to live a good life. Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting these things, but very seldom does an answer focus on increasing one’s knowledge and becoming a more well-rounded and mature person by studying the humanities or the arts can help achieve those economic goals by placing them in a well-reasoned perspective. Many students seem to value the study of humanities as instrumentally necessary to achieve their economic goals. Many of them take them because they have to, not because they want to. They do not appreciate the intrinsic value that humanities and the arts might have in helping them to understand their situatedness within the global community they are a part of and how our individual lives are interwoven with the lives of others.
I would suggest that this failure to appreciate the intrinsic value in the humanities results in students viewing each other as rivals instead of ‘fellow-travelers’ as they pursue their educational goals. We are seeing the demise of what Paul Goodman referred to as the ‘community of scholars.’ Instead this community ought to be extended into our economic institutions. This adversarial relationship is transferred to the economic sphere when they start to compete for jobs and advancement within their careers/organizations. The higher up one goes in an organization the fewer people are your peers, and the top is very lonely. As Marx so well demonstrated in “Estranged Labor,” this process alienates us from each other and from ourselves. We understand and value ourselves only in terms of our economic value to the system. Even politics is being reduced to this level – how many jobs are being created, bailing out organizations that are inefficient, but’ too large to fail,’ etc. We are even beginning to look for cultural scapegoats as the cause of these issues – just look at the illegal immigration issue being propagated by commentators like Lou Dobbs as the main cause associated with the demise of the middle class.
Let me be rather blunt here- as we turn away from developing and appreciating an understanding of who we are through the humanities we are creating the Orwellian State! In order to reverse this trend we need to understand economics through the prism of the humanities, not view the humanities through the prism of economics. If we want to have the best from those we hire, we need to know those we hire – we need to know their narratives regarding their ethnic, cultural, religious, etc. background. People do not fit into tidy, neat little conceptual boxes of understanding. Besides being able to understand what makes life significant in general, we need to see how our conception fits with our individual employees conceptions, not vice versa. We need to find an overlapping consensus concerning goals, objectives, and how to obtain them, to incorporate a Rawlsian notion. This is hard work, but it pays off because getting the best from our people will result in an increased opportunity to create wealth and create and maintain a stable, healthy democratic society where everyone is living a viable and flourishing life.
Upcoming schedule: Not for Profit reading group
I hope all our readers have been doing the extra credit assignment and reding Nussbaum's Not for Profit. I kicked off our online reading group off last week, and here's the schedule for the rest of this event:
And as I mentioned, we'll also have a guest post from Tim Burke, and our author Martha Nussbaum will be replying to the posts once the group has concluded. I hope everyone will join in.
- August 30: Chris Panza
- September 2: John Alexander
- September 9: Adam Potthast
- September 13: Mike Austin
- September 16: Becko Copenhaver
- September 20: Vance Ricks
- September 23: Jason Nicholson
- September 27: Harry Brighouse
- September 30: David Hunter
And as I mentioned, we'll also have a guest post from Tim Burke, and our author Martha Nussbaum will be replying to the posts once the group has concluded. I hope everyone will join in.
Nussbaum's Not for Profit: Episode 1
First, I'd like to thank Martha Nussbaum for putting her considerable rhetorical skill, argumentative ability, and professional reputation behind Not for Profit. This is the book that I suspect academic humanists have waited a long time for: a spirited, lucid, and accessible defense of their profession that directly confronts the challenges the humanities have faced over the past few decades, particularly at the higher education level. It is thus a worthy successor to her earlier book, Cultivating Humanity.
Since ISW is a philosophy teaching blog, I'd like to focus on two concerns that relate to the responsibilities of philosophers as humanistic educators. The first is philosophy's relationship to other humanities disciplines; the second, philosophy's reputation not for building human knowledge, but for destroying it.
Reading Not for Profit, I kept thinking about how often I feel compelled to defend philosophy, but how rarely I feel compelled to defend the humanities. Indeed, I occasionally forget that philosophy is typically classified with the humanities disciplines. In some respects, this reflects what I would call a mild estrangement between academic philosophy, especially as practiced in the English-speaking world, and the other humanities disciplines. This is a familiar point that I need not belabor (for some earlier discussion, see Menand on the humanities and philosophy's relation to other disciplines) But suffice to say that in my experience, Anglo-American philosophers often see eye to eye more with their colleagues in the natural or social sciences than with those in literature, history, or the arts. With the humanities imperiled by the instrumentalist or economic growth-based approach to education whose limitations Nussbaum so vigorously criticizes, it's natural for humanities disciplines to turn against one another in the fight for scarce resources. (Nussbaum's report of a religious studies department being told that, unlike philosophy, religious studies is not "core", exemplifies this potential antagonism. [pp. 123-24]) Shall we teach students composition or foreign languages or critical thinking? Will students study Plato, Proust, or Picasso? Such questions imply that the humanities are merely a collection of disciplines with disparate aims, as if the study of Plato, Proust, an Picasso do not serve some definable 'humanistic' aim.
Not for Profit thus leads me to conclude that the humanities — or more exactly, its practitioners — need to develop, articulate, and defend a shared vision of what the humanities are for. Nussbaum has, in my estimation, done much of this work for us, ably highlighting how democratic societies and the individuals that inhabit them flourish only when their 'technical' education is complemented by a 'civic' education. Roughly speaking, Nussbaum powerfully reminds us, in the spirit of Socrates and Aristotle, that an education that helps us achieve our ends is useless if our ends are not worth achieving or if we lack any capacity to rationally and imaginatively appraise those ends. What good is the 'American dream,' Nussbaum writes, for people with limited, imaginatively cramped dreams? (p. 137)
For humanists, we need to show greater solidarity in defending and promoting this vision. I'm thinking of solidarity both in horizontal and vertical terms. Horizontally, we philosophers working at the higher education level need to collaborate more with historians, literary theorists, and the like in other departments, showing how the humanities are indispensable, and despite our differing disciplinary methodologies and predilections, we are nevertheless allies in a common cause of humanistic education. Vertically, we need to show greater solidarity with humanities educators at the K-12 level, coming to their aid when foreign language and music programs are put on the chopping block. And we need to collaborate with the informal mechanisms of humanities education — museums, libraries, granting agencies, arts organizations, and the like — so that humanities education does not become equated with *academic* humanities education.
Now my second concern, which is more internal to philosophy as such: Philosophy's role in civic education is (unsurprisingly) most prominent in what Nussbaum sees as the development of a capacity for argument. And I share with her the belief that absent some facility for argument, students are left too easily influenced, too susceptible to the claims of authority, and hamstrung in their ability to critically engage their own beliefs and the beliefs of others. And philosophy is distinctive among humanities disciplines in highlighting the common logic of arguments and making the development of a capacity for argument an explicit aim of its pedagogy. It's thus hard to imagine any version of humanities education oriented toward what Nussbaum calls "Socratic values" that does not include philosophy and yet expects to produce a democratic citizen: "active, critical, curious, capable of resisting authority and peer pressure." (p. 72)
The underside of this is that philosophy seems often to result not in improvements in students' beliefs, values, or understanding, but a kind of skepticism, bordering on nihilism. As we've discussed here at ISW before, students learning moral philosophy too often leave their studies as moderately sophisticated moral relativists. Many of my students report that philosophy is skepticism for its own sake, a set of intellectual tools to demonstrate the folly or inadequacy of various systems of belief, and as Mike once observed, it seems common for students to leave philosophy with the impression that it's all questions, no answers. I once had a teacher tell me that philosophy is "the machete of academic disciplines." An apt metaphor in some respects: Philosophy tries to cut big ideas down to size, uproot them, and then see which of them can withstand scrutiny. Yet whatever a machete's virtue at clearing the landscape, it doesn't plant seeds that lead to new growth.
My worry, then — and note that this is no criticism of Nussbaum — is that philosophy's penchant for relentless criticism too often succeeds too well in engendering skepticism in students. Democracies need skepticism, but wither from cynicism. And my suspicion is that we philosophers produce more cynics than skeptics — more reflexive, knowingly dismissive postmodern cynics with a contempt for the patient, probing search for the truth than thoughtful, humble inquirers who use argument as a tool to gain understanding and wisdom instead of the 'upper hand' in rhetorical exchanges.
So I fear that philosophy educators too often create clever citizens instead of wise ones. And this makes philosophy's role in the civic education Nussbaum defends regrettably narrow: the skeptical 'not so fast!' discipline that destroys knowledge without putting something in its place. Future discussions of how philosophy serves the humanistic ends of a democratic society should, in my estimation, think carefully about how philosophy can be constructive, instead of merely destructive.
Since ISW is a philosophy teaching blog, I'd like to focus on two concerns that relate to the responsibilities of philosophers as humanistic educators. The first is philosophy's relationship to other humanities disciplines; the second, philosophy's reputation not for building human knowledge, but for destroying it.
Reading Not for Profit, I kept thinking about how often I feel compelled to defend philosophy, but how rarely I feel compelled to defend the humanities. Indeed, I occasionally forget that philosophy is typically classified with the humanities disciplines. In some respects, this reflects what I would call a mild estrangement between academic philosophy, especially as practiced in the English-speaking world, and the other humanities disciplines. This is a familiar point that I need not belabor (for some earlier discussion, see Menand on the humanities and philosophy's relation to other disciplines) But suffice to say that in my experience, Anglo-American philosophers often see eye to eye more with their colleagues in the natural or social sciences than with those in literature, history, or the arts. With the humanities imperiled by the instrumentalist or economic growth-based approach to education whose limitations Nussbaum so vigorously criticizes, it's natural for humanities disciplines to turn against one another in the fight for scarce resources. (Nussbaum's report of a religious studies department being told that, unlike philosophy, religious studies is not "core", exemplifies this potential antagonism. [pp. 123-24]) Shall we teach students composition or foreign languages or critical thinking? Will students study Plato, Proust, or Picasso? Such questions imply that the humanities are merely a collection of disciplines with disparate aims, as if the study of Plato, Proust, an Picasso do not serve some definable 'humanistic' aim.
Not for Profit thus leads me to conclude that the humanities — or more exactly, its practitioners — need to develop, articulate, and defend a shared vision of what the humanities are for. Nussbaum has, in my estimation, done much of this work for us, ably highlighting how democratic societies and the individuals that inhabit them flourish only when their 'technical' education is complemented by a 'civic' education. Roughly speaking, Nussbaum powerfully reminds us, in the spirit of Socrates and Aristotle, that an education that helps us achieve our ends is useless if our ends are not worth achieving or if we lack any capacity to rationally and imaginatively appraise those ends. What good is the 'American dream,' Nussbaum writes, for people with limited, imaginatively cramped dreams? (p. 137)
For humanists, we need to show greater solidarity in defending and promoting this vision. I'm thinking of solidarity both in horizontal and vertical terms. Horizontally, we philosophers working at the higher education level need to collaborate more with historians, literary theorists, and the like in other departments, showing how the humanities are indispensable, and despite our differing disciplinary methodologies and predilections, we are nevertheless allies in a common cause of humanistic education. Vertically, we need to show greater solidarity with humanities educators at the K-12 level, coming to their aid when foreign language and music programs are put on the chopping block. And we need to collaborate with the informal mechanisms of humanities education — museums, libraries, granting agencies, arts organizations, and the like — so that humanities education does not become equated with *academic* humanities education.
Now my second concern, which is more internal to philosophy as such: Philosophy's role in civic education is (unsurprisingly) most prominent in what Nussbaum sees as the development of a capacity for argument. And I share with her the belief that absent some facility for argument, students are left too easily influenced, too susceptible to the claims of authority, and hamstrung in their ability to critically engage their own beliefs and the beliefs of others. And philosophy is distinctive among humanities disciplines in highlighting the common logic of arguments and making the development of a capacity for argument an explicit aim of its pedagogy. It's thus hard to imagine any version of humanities education oriented toward what Nussbaum calls "Socratic values" that does not include philosophy and yet expects to produce a democratic citizen: "active, critical, curious, capable of resisting authority and peer pressure." (p. 72)
The underside of this is that philosophy seems often to result not in improvements in students' beliefs, values, or understanding, but a kind of skepticism, bordering on nihilism. As we've discussed here at ISW before, students learning moral philosophy too often leave their studies as moderately sophisticated moral relativists. Many of my students report that philosophy is skepticism for its own sake, a set of intellectual tools to demonstrate the folly or inadequacy of various systems of belief, and as Mike once observed, it seems common for students to leave philosophy with the impression that it's all questions, no answers. I once had a teacher tell me that philosophy is "the machete of academic disciplines." An apt metaphor in some respects: Philosophy tries to cut big ideas down to size, uproot them, and then see which of them can withstand scrutiny. Yet whatever a machete's virtue at clearing the landscape, it doesn't plant seeds that lead to new growth.
My worry, then — and note that this is no criticism of Nussbaum — is that philosophy's penchant for relentless criticism too often succeeds too well in engendering skepticism in students. Democracies need skepticism, but wither from cynicism. And my suspicion is that we philosophers produce more cynics than skeptics — more reflexive, knowingly dismissive postmodern cynics with a contempt for the patient, probing search for the truth than thoughtful, humble inquirers who use argument as a tool to gain understanding and wisdom instead of the 'upper hand' in rhetorical exchanges.
So I fear that philosophy educators too often create clever citizens instead of wise ones. And this makes philosophy's role in the civic education Nussbaum defends regrettably narrow: the skeptical 'not so fast!' discipline that destroys knowledge without putting something in its place. Future discussions of how philosophy serves the humanistic ends of a democratic society should, in my estimation, think carefully about how philosophy can be constructive, instead of merely destructive.
One last reminder: Not for Profit discussion starts August 25
A last reminder (and an announcement): The start of our online reading group on Nussbaum's Not for Profit is August 25. I'm also pleased to announce that in addition to posts from the regular ISW contributors and a concluding comment from Martha Nussbaum, Timothy Burke will be guest posting during the reading group. Tim is a specialist in African history, but also dabbles in U.S. popular culture. His blog Easily Distracted is one of the most long-standing, and in my estimation best, academic blogs out there (and indeed, I've linked to Tim's work a number of times here at ISW: on assessment and institutional transparency, students' impulse to use phrases like 'fails to consider' in their writing, and most recently on tenure). I never fail to learn something and be provoked Tim's posts on teaching and higher education, so I know he'll offer valuable insights on humanities education from a non-philosopher's point of view.
Oh great. Students are studying even less!?
As if helping students learn isn't hard enough: The time students devote to studying is in long term decline:
It is a fundamental part of college education: the idea that young people don’t just learn from lectures, but on their own, holed up in the library with books and, perhaps, a trusty yellow highlighter. But new research, conducted by two California economics professors, shows that over the past five decades, the number of hours that the average college student studies each week has been steadily dropping. According to time-use surveys analyzed by professors Philip Babcock, at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Mindy Marks, at the University of California Riverside, the average student at a four-year college in 1961 studied about 24 hours a week. Today’s average student hits the books for just 14 hours.
The decline, Babcock and Marks found, infects students of all demographics. No matter the student’s major, gender, or race, no matter the size of the school or the quality of the SAT scores of the people enrolled there, the results are the same: Students of all ability levels are studying less.
Obviously, this trend undermines one of the central assumptions of the collegiate learning experience:
Whatever the reason, one thing is clear: The central bargain of a college education — that students have fairly light classloads because they’re independent enough to be learning outside the classroom — can no longer be taken for granted. And some institutions of higher learning have yet to grapple with, or even accept, the possibility that something dramatic has happened.
Studying has long been considered a key part of a college student’s growth, both as a means to an end — a deeper understanding of the subject matter — and as a valuable habit in its own right. A person who can self-motivate to learn, academics argue, is not only more likely to be a productive worker, but more fulfilled citizen. As a result, universities for decades have stated — sometimes officially — that for every hour students spend in class each week they are expected to be studying for two hours on their own.
And some of the expected explanations don't seem to wash:
According to the skeptics of the findings, there is one other notable change: Today’s students are working with more efficient tools when they do finally sit down to study. They don’t have to bang out a term paper on a typewriter; nor do they need to wander the stacks at the library for hours, tracking down some dusty tome.
“A student doesn’t need to retype a paper three times before handing it in,” said Heather Rowan-Kenyon, an assistant professor of higher education at Boston College. “And a student today can sit on their bed and go to the library, instead of going to the library and going to the card catalog.” That’s true, Babcock and Marks agree. But according to their research, the greatest decline in student studying took place before computers swept through colleges: Between 1961 and 1981, study times fell from 24.4 to 16.8 hours per week (and then, ultimately, to 14). Nor do they believe student employment or changing demographics to be the root cause. While they acknowledge that students are working more and campuses attract students who wouldn’t have bothered attending college a generation ago, the researchers point out that study times are dropping for everyone regardless of employment or personal characteristics.And I certainly don't think I have been a party to the "nonaggression pact" put forth as one explanation:
One theory, offered by Babcock and Marks, suggests that the cause, or at least one of them, is a breakdown in the professor-student relationship. Instead of a dynamic where a professor sets standards and students try to meet them, the more common scenario these days, they suggest, is one in which both sides hope to do as little as possible.
“No one really has an incentive to make a demanding class,” Marks said. “To make a tough assignment, you have to write it, grade it. Kids come into office hours and want help on it. If you make it too hard, they complain. Other than the sheer love for knowledge and the desire to pass it on to the next generation, there is no incentive in the system to encourage effort.”
The problem dates back to the 1960s, said Murray Sperber, a visiting professor in the graduate school of education at the University of California Berkeley. Sperber, at the time, was a graduate student at Berkeley and was part of an upstart movement pushing for students to rate their professors. The idea, Sperber said, was to give students a chance to express their opinions about their classes — a noble thought, but one that has backfired, according to many professors. Course evaluations have created a sort of “nonaggression pact,” Sperber said, where professors — especially ones seeking tenure — go easy on the homework and students, in turn, give glowing course evaluations. The simplest explanation? In order to study, you have to know how!
But one sign that studying still has value is that students themselves are concerned about it. In a 2008 survey of more than 160,000 undergraduates enrolled in the University of California system, students were asked to list what interferes most with their academic success. Some blamed family responsibilities, some blamed jobs. The second most common obstacle to success, according to the students, was that they were depressed, stressed, or upset. And then came the number one reason, agreed upon by 33 percent of students, who said they struggled with one particular problem “frequently” or “all the time”: They simply did not know how to sit down and study.And are there pedagogical avenues to increasing study time? This is advice I've always tried to follow.
Professors are being told to give explicit tasks to students. Just telling them to read these days is often considered “too generic, too general of a request,” said Kinzie. And many professors today are using Internet-based systems, like Blackboard, where students are required to log on and write about the assigned reading for all of their classmates to see.So in Lenin's famous words: "What is to be done?"
It is a fundamental part of college education: the idea that young people don’t just learn from lectures, but on their own, holed up in the library with books and, perhaps, a trusty yellow highlighter. But new research, conducted by two California economics professors, shows that over the past five decades, the number of hours that the average college student studies each week has been steadily dropping. According to time-use surveys analyzed by professors Philip Babcock, at the University of California Santa Barbara, and Mindy Marks, at the University of California Riverside, the average student at a four-year college in 1961 studied about 24 hours a week. Today’s average student hits the books for just 14 hours.
The decline, Babcock and Marks found, infects students of all demographics. No matter the student’s major, gender, or race, no matter the size of the school or the quality of the SAT scores of the people enrolled there, the results are the same: Students of all ability levels are studying less.
Obviously, this trend undermines one of the central assumptions of the collegiate learning experience:
Whatever the reason, one thing is clear: The central bargain of a college education — that students have fairly light classloads because they’re independent enough to be learning outside the classroom — can no longer be taken for granted. And some institutions of higher learning have yet to grapple with, or even accept, the possibility that something dramatic has happened.
Studying has long been considered a key part of a college student’s growth, both as a means to an end — a deeper understanding of the subject matter — and as a valuable habit in its own right. A person who can self-motivate to learn, academics argue, is not only more likely to be a productive worker, but more fulfilled citizen. As a result, universities for decades have stated — sometimes officially — that for every hour students spend in class each week they are expected to be studying for two hours on their own.
And some of the expected explanations don't seem to wash:
According to the skeptics of the findings, there is one other notable change: Today’s students are working with more efficient tools when they do finally sit down to study. They don’t have to bang out a term paper on a typewriter; nor do they need to wander the stacks at the library for hours, tracking down some dusty tome.
“A student doesn’t need to retype a paper three times before handing it in,” said Heather Rowan-Kenyon, an assistant professor of higher education at Boston College. “And a student today can sit on their bed and go to the library, instead of going to the library and going to the card catalog.” That’s true, Babcock and Marks agree. But according to their research, the greatest decline in student studying took place before computers swept through colleges: Between 1961 and 1981, study times fell from 24.4 to 16.8 hours per week (and then, ultimately, to 14). Nor do they believe student employment or changing demographics to be the root cause. While they acknowledge that students are working more and campuses attract students who wouldn’t have bothered attending college a generation ago, the researchers point out that study times are dropping for everyone regardless of employment or personal characteristics.And I certainly don't think I have been a party to the "nonaggression pact" put forth as one explanation:
One theory, offered by Babcock and Marks, suggests that the cause, or at least one of them, is a breakdown in the professor-student relationship. Instead of a dynamic where a professor sets standards and students try to meet them, the more common scenario these days, they suggest, is one in which both sides hope to do as little as possible.
“No one really has an incentive to make a demanding class,” Marks said. “To make a tough assignment, you have to write it, grade it. Kids come into office hours and want help on it. If you make it too hard, they complain. Other than the sheer love for knowledge and the desire to pass it on to the next generation, there is no incentive in the system to encourage effort.”
The problem dates back to the 1960s, said Murray Sperber, a visiting professor in the graduate school of education at the University of California Berkeley. Sperber, at the time, was a graduate student at Berkeley and was part of an upstart movement pushing for students to rate their professors. The idea, Sperber said, was to give students a chance to express their opinions about their classes — a noble thought, but one that has backfired, according to many professors. Course evaluations have created a sort of “nonaggression pact,” Sperber said, where professors — especially ones seeking tenure — go easy on the homework and students, in turn, give glowing course evaluations. The simplest explanation? In order to study, you have to know how!
But one sign that studying still has value is that students themselves are concerned about it. In a 2008 survey of more than 160,000 undergraduates enrolled in the University of California system, students were asked to list what interferes most with their academic success. Some blamed family responsibilities, some blamed jobs. The second most common obstacle to success, according to the students, was that they were depressed, stressed, or upset. And then came the number one reason, agreed upon by 33 percent of students, who said they struggled with one particular problem “frequently” or “all the time”: They simply did not know how to sit down and study.And are there pedagogical avenues to increasing study time? This is advice I've always tried to follow.
Professors are being told to give explicit tasks to students. Just telling them to read these days is often considered “too generic, too general of a request,” said Kinzie. And many professors today are using Internet-based systems, like Blackboard, where students are required to log on and write about the assigned reading for all of their classmates to see.So in Lenin's famous words: "What is to be done?"
Online teaching
I am teaching an online intro course for the first time and am wondering if anyone has some references on how to set up a successful online course. This course is for a community college. Any suggestions on how to do a good job would be appreciated. The text they use is A Journey Through the Landscape of Philosophy by Jack Bowen.
Call for Proposals: Teaching Philosophy Session at Central APA, 2011
The APA Committee on Teaching Philosophy is seeking proposals for a panel session at the APA Central Division Meeting, March 30-April 2, 2011, Minneapolis, MN on this topic:
“Does It Matter What I do? Student Engagement, Social Change and Teaching”
There are many ethical and social issues for which collective action would be required to prevent a significant harm or ameliorate an injustice. Some people (i.e., students) respond with despair to such situations, believing that it doesn't ‘matter’ what they do since their individual actions seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Others respond that they can make a difference, that what they do ‘matters.’ These issues raise some of the following concerns for philosophy teachers:
The Committee is seeking a panel of instructors to address these and related issues in teaching philosophy. Please submit a half to one page proposal by September, 15, 2010 to Nathan Nobis, Morehouse College, nathan.nobis@gmail.com
“Does It Matter What I do? Student Engagement, Social Change and Teaching”
There are many ethical and social issues for which collective action would be required to prevent a significant harm or ameliorate an injustice. Some people (i.e., students) respond with despair to such situations, believing that it doesn't ‘matter’ what they do since their individual actions seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Others respond that they can make a difference, that what they do ‘matters.’ These issues raise some of the following concerns for philosophy teachers:
- Philosophical issues: what’s the most reasonable response to arguments for and against personal obligations in cases requiring collective action?
- Philosophy of education: what role should philosophy teaching play in contributing to social change and students’ social engagement?
- Psychological issues: why are some people “optimistic” and others “pessimistic” here? What are the psychological (and sociological) influences?
- Pedagogical issues: How do different teaching techniques influence students’ responses to such issues? E.g., does "service learning" or "community outreach" make a difference?
The Committee is seeking a panel of instructors to address these and related issues in teaching philosophy. Please submit a half to one page proposal by September, 15, 2010 to Nathan Nobis, Morehouse College, nathan.nobis@gmail.com
But I Want to Save the World Now
I am extremely lucky to have wonderful students, not just in the sense that they are diligent and eager, but also in the sense that like many students at my school they are intrinsically interested in the welfare of others. This post is also a bit of a preview to our reading group on Nussbaum because students like these have found a use, and indeed, perhaps the primary use, of a liberal education. But...they see it as impeding their efforts...what do I do with a particular student of mine who is a good example?
Many students at my institution arrive with a general sense that they ought to be, or are, devoted to the welfare of others. Now, there are many things that can be said of this, some positive and some negative. However, what I'd like to focus on are the challenges of teaching a student like this, who is earnest and ardent. So allow me to use the pretense of a particular student, though my story is not of a particular student.
Jane is a bright, diligent student who comes from a middle class background and who has such an overriding interest in helping others that she speaks in specifics rather than abstractions - she does not speak of "helping others," but wonders whether helping others is more effective when dealing with individuals or with structures. So Jane is thoughtful and on her own has discovered one of the great controversies of our age.
So where is the problem? Well, Jane has a hard time seeing how doing the work of college 1) doesn't immediately take away from her ability to do work for others and 2) actually leads her to the goal of doing work for others.
Here is my response, and I am curious as to how my fellow colleagues - most of them ethicists - would deal with this situation.
My response was that the people who make a difference, on average, on a wide scale, are people who are highly educated, usually in a specialized field. You can't major in good intentions. Biologists, economists, engineers, historians, writers, etc. make an enormous difference. And so while Jane's intentions are so good, and as good as to be kept, hopefully, her best bet for changing the world is just to do the work. It's a hard lesson to learn and a hard lesson to teach - what we do does not always, in fact rarely, make sense in the larger scheme of things. But there is nothing we can merely "say" to make it make sense. The making sense is done by what we do, not a precondition of what we do.
Or, to be more political, we should be accountable, but the fact of the value of U.S. higher education is testified by its actual success.
To bring it back down to teaching, many of my students spend an enormous amount of genuine and earnest energy thinking about how they can make the world right by their lights (again, much can be said about this, but on that later). I have nothing but admiration and awe for this. But at least in Jane's case, it distracts and prevents her from getting the very education that could make her dream possible.
At least on the teaching, how do you focus your students on the very thing that it takes to realize their goals when their goals make college look like a dentist's waiting room? To put it lightly...
Many students at my institution arrive with a general sense that they ought to be, or are, devoted to the welfare of others. Now, there are many things that can be said of this, some positive and some negative. However, what I'd like to focus on are the challenges of teaching a student like this, who is earnest and ardent. So allow me to use the pretense of a particular student, though my story is not of a particular student.
Jane is a bright, diligent student who comes from a middle class background and who has such an overriding interest in helping others that she speaks in specifics rather than abstractions - she does not speak of "helping others," but wonders whether helping others is more effective when dealing with individuals or with structures. So Jane is thoughtful and on her own has discovered one of the great controversies of our age.
So where is the problem? Well, Jane has a hard time seeing how doing the work of college 1) doesn't immediately take away from her ability to do work for others and 2) actually leads her to the goal of doing work for others.
Here is my response, and I am curious as to how my fellow colleagues - most of them ethicists - would deal with this situation.
My response was that the people who make a difference, on average, on a wide scale, are people who are highly educated, usually in a specialized field. You can't major in good intentions. Biologists, economists, engineers, historians, writers, etc. make an enormous difference. And so while Jane's intentions are so good, and as good as to be kept, hopefully, her best bet for changing the world is just to do the work. It's a hard lesson to learn and a hard lesson to teach - what we do does not always, in fact rarely, make sense in the larger scheme of things. But there is nothing we can merely "say" to make it make sense. The making sense is done by what we do, not a precondition of what we do.
Or, to be more political, we should be accountable, but the fact of the value of U.S. higher education is testified by its actual success.
To bring it back down to teaching, many of my students spend an enormous amount of genuine and earnest energy thinking about how they can make the world right by their lights (again, much can be said about this, but on that later). I have nothing but admiration and awe for this. But at least in Jane's case, it distracts and prevents her from getting the very education that could make her dream possible.
At least on the teaching, how do you focus your students on the very thing that it takes to realize their goals when their goals make college look like a dentist's waiting room? To put it lightly...
"Hand and brain are cognitively connected": Vocational education in a democracy
Not to divulge too much about Nussbaum's Not for Profit in advance of our reading group, but Nussbaum claims that the goals of education have become too oriented toward economic ends: for students, their future incomes, and for societies, economic growth.
Along comes Mike Rose with a beautiful piece reminding us that students themselves don't see their educations solely in economic terms.
Rose reports on what he heard from students at a community college who are enrolling in vocational programs. Economic motives are central in their thinking, but so too are non-economic considerations:
“Welcome to college, “ the director is saying, “I congratulate you.” She then asks them, one by one, to talk about what motivates them and why they’re here. There is some scraping of chairs, shifting of bodies, and the still life animates. The economic motive does loom large. One guy laughs, “I don’t want to work a crappy job all my life.” A woman in the back announces that she wants to get her GED “to get some money to take care of myself.” What is interesting, though — and I wish the president and his secretary could hear it — are all the other reasons people give for being here: to “learn more,” to be a “role model for my kids,” to get “a career to support my daughter,” to “have a better life.” The director gets to the older man. “I’m illiterate,” he says in a halting voice, “and I want to learn to read and write.” The semester before, students also wrote out their reasons for attending the program — as this current cohort will soon have to do — and their range of responses was even wider. Again, the economic motive was key, but consider these comments, some written in neat cursive, some in scratchy uneven (and sometimes error-ridden) print: “learning new things I never thought about before”; “I want my kids too know that I can write and read”; “Hope Fully with this program I could turn my life around”; “to develope better social skills and better speech”; “I want to be somebody in this world”; “I like to do test and essay like it is part of my life.”Rose observes that we tend to make sharp distinctions between blue collar and white collar work: between 'neck down' professions and 'neck up' professions. And we think of education in those corresponding terms, and in so doing, shortchange and misdescribe the motives of many students:
But what I’ve found as I’ve closely examined physical work is its significant intellectual content. This content is no surprise if we consider the surgeon, but the carpenter and the hair stylist and the welder, too, are constantly solving problems, applying concepts, making decisions on the fly. A lot of our easy characterizations about work just don’t hold up under scrutiny. Hand and brain are cognitively connected.
...
People, affluent as well as poor, go back to school for all kinds of reasons, but our current policy incentives and the rhetoric that frames them don’t capture this rich web of motives.
One consequence of this narrow understanding is the missed opportunity to create a more robust appeal for returning to school. As we just witnessed, people sign up for educational programs for economic reasons but also because further education pulls at their minds, hearts, and sense of who they are and who they want to become. The prospect of a good job is hugely motivating, but it can seem far off, especially during the first difficult months of returning to school.
People need other, complementary motivators: engagement with the work in front of you, the recognition that you’re learning new things, becoming competent, using your mind, doing something good for yourself and your family. It’s common in occupational programs — from welding to nursing to culinary and cosmetology — to hear participants express with some emotion their involvement with and commitment to what they’re learning. In the high-testosterone world of the welding shop, for example, I hear one guy after another talk about the “beauty” of a weld and how much they “love” welding. There’s more than a financial calculus involved here.And here's where Nussbaum's interest in democratic education comes in. Rose notes that when we bifurcate educational aims in this way — high-level symbolic thinking for some, 'mere' vocational training for other — we tacitly endorse a rather undemocratic conception of education:
The second and more troubling problem with the narrow economic focus of the educational policy we’re considering is the way it plays into a longstanding undemocratic tendency in American education policy, and that is a narrow understanding of the lives and work of working class-people. The approach to schooling for them has often been a functional one heavy on job training and thin on the broader intellectual, aesthetic, and civic dimensions of education. And since policy influences the content and philosophy of programs — new programs particularly — this narrow understanding can be reproduced for new generations of students. The most striking and consequential example of this tendency was the split in the curriculum between the academic and vocational course of study as the comprehensive high school was developed in the early 20th century. This split has led to all sorts of problems with the education of the children of the working class, an education that often failed to address a wide range of human learning.
But, of course, working life provides the thought and action sold short in the typical school curriculum. The electrician forms a hypothesis about a faulty circuit and systemically tests the variables. Through a hole in the wall of an old house, a plumber feels the structures he can’t see, visualizing them from touch in order to figure out where a blockage might be. A hairstylist plans a cut as she talks to a client and examines her hair, “and at the end,” as one stylist told me, “you’ve got to come up with a thought: 'O.K. it’s gotta be this length, it’s gotta be layered here, it’s got to be textured there, it can’t have a fringe.' ” Another stylist tries to fix a botched dye job by speculating about what the previous stylist was trying to achieve. A woodworker looks at old desks on a computer to get some ideas as to how to repair a customer’s antique.Rose's pieces reminds us that education dignifies individuals and their work — something a democratic society forgets at its peril.
Along comes Mike Rose with a beautiful piece reminding us that students themselves don't see their educations solely in economic terms.
Rose reports on what he heard from students at a community college who are enrolling in vocational programs. Economic motives are central in their thinking, but so too are non-economic considerations:
“Welcome to college, “ the director is saying, “I congratulate you.” She then asks them, one by one, to talk about what motivates them and why they’re here. There is some scraping of chairs, shifting of bodies, and the still life animates. The economic motive does loom large. One guy laughs, “I don’t want to work a crappy job all my life.” A woman in the back announces that she wants to get her GED “to get some money to take care of myself.” What is interesting, though — and I wish the president and his secretary could hear it — are all the other reasons people give for being here: to “learn more,” to be a “role model for my kids,” to get “a career to support my daughter,” to “have a better life.” The director gets to the older man. “I’m illiterate,” he says in a halting voice, “and I want to learn to read and write.” The semester before, students also wrote out their reasons for attending the program — as this current cohort will soon have to do — and their range of responses was even wider. Again, the economic motive was key, but consider these comments, some written in neat cursive, some in scratchy uneven (and sometimes error-ridden) print: “learning new things I never thought about before”; “I want my kids too know that I can write and read”; “Hope Fully with this program I could turn my life around”; “to develope better social skills and better speech”; “I want to be somebody in this world”; “I like to do test and essay like it is part of my life.”Rose observes that we tend to make sharp distinctions between blue collar and white collar work: between 'neck down' professions and 'neck up' professions. And we think of education in those corresponding terms, and in so doing, shortchange and misdescribe the motives of many students:
But what I’ve found as I’ve closely examined physical work is its significant intellectual content. This content is no surprise if we consider the surgeon, but the carpenter and the hair stylist and the welder, too, are constantly solving problems, applying concepts, making decisions on the fly. A lot of our easy characterizations about work just don’t hold up under scrutiny. Hand and brain are cognitively connected.
...
People, affluent as well as poor, go back to school for all kinds of reasons, but our current policy incentives and the rhetoric that frames them don’t capture this rich web of motives.
One consequence of this narrow understanding is the missed opportunity to create a more robust appeal for returning to school. As we just witnessed, people sign up for educational programs for economic reasons but also because further education pulls at their minds, hearts, and sense of who they are and who they want to become. The prospect of a good job is hugely motivating, but it can seem far off, especially during the first difficult months of returning to school.
People need other, complementary motivators: engagement with the work in front of you, the recognition that you’re learning new things, becoming competent, using your mind, doing something good for yourself and your family. It’s common in occupational programs — from welding to nursing to culinary and cosmetology — to hear participants express with some emotion their involvement with and commitment to what they’re learning. In the high-testosterone world of the welding shop, for example, I hear one guy after another talk about the “beauty” of a weld and how much they “love” welding. There’s more than a financial calculus involved here.And here's where Nussbaum's interest in democratic education comes in. Rose notes that when we bifurcate educational aims in this way — high-level symbolic thinking for some, 'mere' vocational training for other — we tacitly endorse a rather undemocratic conception of education:
The second and more troubling problem with the narrow economic focus of the educational policy we’re considering is the way it plays into a longstanding undemocratic tendency in American education policy, and that is a narrow understanding of the lives and work of working class-people. The approach to schooling for them has often been a functional one heavy on job training and thin on the broader intellectual, aesthetic, and civic dimensions of education. And since policy influences the content and philosophy of programs — new programs particularly — this narrow understanding can be reproduced for new generations of students. The most striking and consequential example of this tendency was the split in the curriculum between the academic and vocational course of study as the comprehensive high school was developed in the early 20th century. This split has led to all sorts of problems with the education of the children of the working class, an education that often failed to address a wide range of human learning.
But, of course, working life provides the thought and action sold short in the typical school curriculum. The electrician forms a hypothesis about a faulty circuit and systemically tests the variables. Through a hole in the wall of an old house, a plumber feels the structures he can’t see, visualizing them from touch in order to figure out where a blockage might be. A hairstylist plans a cut as she talks to a client and examines her hair, “and at the end,” as one stylist told me, “you’ve got to come up with a thought: 'O.K. it’s gotta be this length, it’s gotta be layered here, it’s got to be textured there, it can’t have a fringe.' ” Another stylist tries to fix a botched dye job by speculating about what the previous stylist was trying to achieve. A woodworker looks at old desks on a computer to get some ideas as to how to repair a customer’s antique.Rose's pieces reminds us that education dignifies individuals and their work — something a democratic society forgets at its peril.
teaching argument mapping
Colleagues: inspired in part by some of Mara Harrell's research (and of course by the work of Tim van Gelder), I will begin including the teaching of argument mapping in my courses this semester. It seems particularly apt for the Informal Logic course that I teach, but I plan to try it to a more limited extent in my section of Intro to Philosophy, as well.
Rather than representing arguments in the classic
premise A
premise B
premise C
------------
conclusion
format, argument maps use lines, arrows, and boxes to represent visually the relationships between an argument's premises, intermediate conclusions, responses to objections, and main conclusions. I don't know enough sophisticated HTML to code an argument map here. So, for illustration, here's an example courtesy of the Wikipedia entry on argument mapping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Traffic_congestion_straw_man.png (the conclusion is at the top of the map; the supporting premises are below the main conclusion). There are several software tools -- some available gratis; others not -- for creating argument maps. The hand-and-pen method seems to work, too.
I can see several possible advantages to teaching students how to map the arguments they'll encounter. It seems especially useful for more complex arguments and/or for students who describe themselves as visual learners. But I'd like to hear, from anyone who's used or taught argument mapping for a while now, about some of the challenges that you encountered. Did you choose (or avoid) a particular software tool? What were some of the limitations of argument maps? Did you have a way to assess their effectiveness in helping your students reconstruct and evaluate arguments? If so, then what did you find?
Rather than representing arguments in the classic
premise A
premise B
premise C
------------
conclusion
format, argument maps use lines, arrows, and boxes to represent visually the relationships between an argument's premises, intermediate conclusions, responses to objections, and main conclusions. I don't know enough sophisticated HTML to code an argument map here. So, for illustration, here's an example courtesy of the Wikipedia entry on argument mapping: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Traffic_congestion_straw_man.png (the conclusion is at the top of the map; the supporting premises are below the main conclusion). There are several software tools -- some available gratis; others not -- for creating argument maps. The hand-and-pen method seems to work, too.
I can see several possible advantages to teaching students how to map the arguments they'll encounter. It seems especially useful for more complex arguments and/or for students who describe themselves as visual learners. But I'd like to hear, from anyone who's used or taught argument mapping for a while now, about some of the challenges that you encountered. Did you choose (or avoid) a particular software tool? What were some of the limitations of argument maps? Did you have a way to assess their effectiveness in helping your students reconstruct and evaluate arguments? If so, then what did you find?
Would you take this oath?
An Australian expert on university management has proposed a pair of "Hippocratic oaths," one for university faculty, another for university administrators. Here's the text of the faculty oath:
To the best of my ability I will support open, independent and systematic inquiry, high standards of learning, and the creative and responsible uses of knowledge. In doing so I will:
1. Dare to know: seek to establish truth and knowledge, and to contest false claims.
2. Teach well: teach in light of accepted standards, student needs and current research.
3. Be public-spirited: engage in public projects and debates where I have needed expertise.
4. Be responsible: take care not to misinform, or let others be misled by my claims.
5. Be transparent: disclose the evidence, methods and contributions relied on in my work.
6. Be collegial: share my learning with scholars and students, and seek to learn from them.
7. Be respectful: show courtesy to those who, in good faith, misunderstand or disagree.
8. Be open-minded: be ready to amend my views in light of new evidence or insight.
9. Be impartial: rely only on accepted criteria when judging others or their work.
10. Be scrupulous: declare any conflict of interest that may bias my scholarly judgment.
So is this a fair representation of the ethical obligations of faculty? Would you take this oath yourself?
To the best of my ability I will support open, independent and systematic inquiry, high standards of learning, and the creative and responsible uses of knowledge. In doing so I will:
1. Dare to know: seek to establish truth and knowledge, and to contest false claims.
2. Teach well: teach in light of accepted standards, student needs and current research.
3. Be public-spirited: engage in public projects and debates where I have needed expertise.
4. Be responsible: take care not to misinform, or let others be misled by my claims.
5. Be transparent: disclose the evidence, methods and contributions relied on in my work.
6. Be collegial: share my learning with scholars and students, and seek to learn from them.
7. Be respectful: show courtesy to those who, in good faith, misunderstand or disagree.
8. Be open-minded: be ready to amend my views in light of new evidence or insight.
9. Be impartial: rely only on accepted criteria when judging others or their work.
10. Be scrupulous: declare any conflict of interest that may bias my scholarly judgment.
So is this a fair representation of the ethical obligations of faculty? Would you take this oath yourself?
The late withdrawing student
The Philosophy Smoker has a lively discussion of students' seeking late withdrawals from classes under circumstances like these:
This has happened at least once a semester since I took this job. A student who has been underperforming all semester--turning in half-assed homework assignments, missing a lot of class, earning failing grades on exams--realizes suddenly that he or she is going to fail the class. But it's after the late withdrawal deadline, so there's no simple way to get out of it. So they write me an email or come to my office and ask me to give them permission to obtain a late withdrawal. An anonymous commenter (6:50) makes a forceful ethical argument against granting these withdrawal requests:
when you grant these requests, you aren't simply doing them a favor. You are going on record as vouching for their having a reason that the University considers sufficiently extenuating. If you just grant it to make their lives easier, *you are lying*. You are also misleading people at other schools to which this student might transfer, etc. grades convey information, notably about the amount of effort a student put into a class, even if they do so in a broad way only. And so on. Your job is to teach people, part of which involves having the grades students receive at least somewhat accurately reflect the performance of students in your class. A student might ask nicely to have you change a C to an A, because then they could get into a better grad school. But it is, basically, wrong to do so. It constitutes an act of deception on your part. The fact that such deception benefits a student is beside the point.
I confess I don't deal with late withdrawal requests like these often (perhaps a byproduct of a quarter system?), but I think Mr. Zero's attitude is the right one: Allowing late withdrawals for "extenuating circumstances" (illness, family problems, etc.) is reasonable, but letting failing students do this sends the wrong message to them, lets them take up precious class slots, and puts the faculty member in the awkward position of having to attest to the legitimacy of the student's excuse.
So I say 'no'. What say you?
This has happened at least once a semester since I took this job. A student who has been underperforming all semester--turning in half-assed homework assignments, missing a lot of class, earning failing grades on exams--realizes suddenly that he or she is going to fail the class. But it's after the late withdrawal deadline, so there's no simple way to get out of it. So they write me an email or come to my office and ask me to give them permission to obtain a late withdrawal. An anonymous commenter (6:50) makes a forceful ethical argument against granting these withdrawal requests:
when you grant these requests, you aren't simply doing them a favor. You are going on record as vouching for their having a reason that the University considers sufficiently extenuating. If you just grant it to make their lives easier, *you are lying*. You are also misleading people at other schools to which this student might transfer, etc. grades convey information, notably about the amount of effort a student put into a class, even if they do so in a broad way only. And so on. Your job is to teach people, part of which involves having the grades students receive at least somewhat accurately reflect the performance of students in your class. A student might ask nicely to have you change a C to an A, because then they could get into a better grad school. But it is, basically, wrong to do so. It constitutes an act of deception on your part. The fact that such deception benefits a student is beside the point.
I confess I don't deal with late withdrawal requests like these often (perhaps a byproduct of a quarter system?), but I think Mr. Zero's attitude is the right one: Allowing late withdrawals for "extenuating circumstances" (illness, family problems, etc.) is reasonable, but letting failing students do this sends the wrong message to them, lets them take up precious class slots, and puts the faculty member in the awkward position of having to attest to the legitimacy of the student's excuse.
So I say 'no'. What say you?
"Teaching Philosophy" Survey
The journal Teaching Philosophy is running a survey about the journal and how it should develop. Please take it here: http://surveymonkey.com/s/JG8GKRH
Public Philosophy
The American Philosophical Association's Committee on Public Philosophy has just launched a new website. There is more content to come, but it will contain some useful resources for philosophy instructors as it continues to be developed. And I think good public philosophy, done by philosophers, would help our case that philosophy in particular, as well as the humanities in general, have value with respect to both individual lives and the common good.
Coming August 25: Nussbaum's Not for Profit
Dear readers, lest you forget: Our online reading group on Martha Nussbaum's defense of humanities education, Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities, will kick off August 25.
I'll get things started, followed by posts from Chris Panza, John Alexander, and the rest of the ISW crew.
Here are links for acquiring the book: Amazon, Princeton
And here's a PDF of chapter one.
I hope you'll all join in the discussion!
I'll get things started, followed by posts from Chris Panza, John Alexander, and the rest of the ISW crew.
Here are links for acquiring the book: Amazon, Princeton
And here's a PDF of chapter one.
I hope you'll all join in the discussion!
Burke on tenure
Apropos our recent discussion of tenure, the estimable Timothy Burke captures a lot of my own views on the matter at Easily Distracted. Some select quotes:
... you can all stop talking now about whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea for higher education as a whole, because it is no longer a common institutional practice. It remains at top tier universities and colleges as a perk, as something that makes their jobs attractive to desirable employees. Like all the perks and features that make skilled people want to work for Google or the bonuses that make Goldman & Sachs the place to be for an investment banker. As such, I expect some version of it to remain at the institutions which can afford it.
You can argue against tenure in these terms if you’re against incentives in general. I don’t see too many critics of tenure with a consistent view along those lines. You can argue against it if you think it is a poor incentive for attracting the people that elite institutions should really want, but then you’ll have to tell me who they ought to want instead, why they should want them, and what alternative incentive would attract them.
Where I do feel protected by tenure is with regard to institutional policy and action, in the autonomy I have to shape my courses, participate in governance, enforce what I see as due diligence, have opinions about administrative policy. If you look at institutions without tenure, or with very weak tenure protections, it’s clear that this is the domain where faculty need strong security of some kind. When faculty blow the whistle on profligate presidents, refuse to cooperate with corrupt collegiate athletics, disagree strongly with the dictates of administrators or trustees, defend the integrity of their departments or curricula, they are often the targets of direct and sometimes strikingly crude retaliation. When those faculty are contract or adjunct faculty, they often get shown the exit.
When it works, tenure doesn’t just protect faculty whistleblowers, but also motivates faculty to be good custodians of their institutional future. We could use that in every workplace. Both British Petroleum and the United States as a whole would be better off if the workers at Deepwater Horizon had been able to voice their concerns not just to the top of their corporate hierarchy but to all stakeholders and concerned parties, including the public.
Others' thoughts on Burke on tenure?
... you can all stop talking now about whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea for higher education as a whole, because it is no longer a common institutional practice. It remains at top tier universities and colleges as a perk, as something that makes their jobs attractive to desirable employees. Like all the perks and features that make skilled people want to work for Google or the bonuses that make Goldman & Sachs the place to be for an investment banker. As such, I expect some version of it to remain at the institutions which can afford it.
You can argue against tenure in these terms if you’re against incentives in general. I don’t see too many critics of tenure with a consistent view along those lines. You can argue against it if you think it is a poor incentive for attracting the people that elite institutions should really want, but then you’ll have to tell me who they ought to want instead, why they should want them, and what alternative incentive would attract them.
Where I do feel protected by tenure is with regard to institutional policy and action, in the autonomy I have to shape my courses, participate in governance, enforce what I see as due diligence, have opinions about administrative policy. If you look at institutions without tenure, or with very weak tenure protections, it’s clear that this is the domain where faculty need strong security of some kind. When faculty blow the whistle on profligate presidents, refuse to cooperate with corrupt collegiate athletics, disagree strongly with the dictates of administrators or trustees, defend the integrity of their departments or curricula, they are often the targets of direct and sometimes strikingly crude retaliation. When those faculty are contract or adjunct faculty, they often get shown the exit.
When it works, tenure doesn’t just protect faculty whistleblowers, but also motivates faculty to be good custodians of their institutional future. We could use that in every workplace. Both British Petroleum and the United States as a whole would be better off if the workers at Deepwater Horizon had been able to voice their concerns not just to the top of their corporate hierarchy but to all stakeholders and concerned parties, including the public.
Others' thoughts on Burke on tenure?
:-> Plato with emoticons :^D
I don't know if anyone else caught this, but J. Aaron Simmons and Scott Aikin have a nifty article in the fall 2009 APA Newsletter on students using emoticons to interpret Plato's dialogues. As Simmons and Aikin write, this is a clever way to help students embed themselves in the give-and-take of the dialogues:
Students in introductory classes regularly need some bridge between their everyday reading skills, which are increasingly shaped by technologically influenced practices such as the use of emoticons, and those skills necessary for reading philosophy. Often, the Platonic dialogues are the first extended exposure students have had to philosophical writing. By tapping into the communicative norms understood and deployed by our students in their everyday lives, we may be better able to engage them with Plato’s philosophy—particularly its dramatic style.Check out this terrific sample of the Euthyphro with their students' emoticon annotations:
2a – Euthyphro: “What’s new, Socrates” :-> (hey hey)
2a – Euthyphro: “...Surely you are not prosecuting anyone before the king-archon as I am?” 8-I (eyes wide with surprise)
2a – Socrates: “The Athenians do not call this a prosecution but an indictment, Euthyphro.” :-| (grim)
2b – Euthyphro: “Who is he?” >:-< (angry)
2c – Socrates: “…He is likely to be wise…” ;-> (devilish wink)
3c – Euthyphro: “Whenever I speak of divine matters in the assembly and foretell the future, they laugh me down as if I were crazy; and yet I have foretold nothing that did not happen.” :-( (frowning)
3c – Socrates: “…to be laughed at does not matter perhaps, for the Athenians do not mind anyone they think clever, so long as he does not teach his own wisdom, but if they think he makes other to be like himself, they get angry.” :-Y (a quiet aside)
4a – Socrates: “My dear sir! Your own father?” 8-O (Omigod!!)
5a – Euthyphro: “I should be of no use, Socrates...if I did not have accurate knowledge of all things.” :-, (smirk)
5a – Socrates: “It is indeed most important, my admirable Euthyphro, that I should become your pupil...” :-> (bitingly sarcastic)
7a – Socrates: “Splendid, Euthyphro! You have now answered in the way I wanted.” :^D (Great! I like it!) Great idea! Good work!
Students in introductory classes regularly need some bridge between their everyday reading skills, which are increasingly shaped by technologically influenced practices such as the use of emoticons, and those skills necessary for reading philosophy. Often, the Platonic dialogues are the first extended exposure students have had to philosophical writing. By tapping into the communicative norms understood and deployed by our students in their everyday lives, we may be better able to engage them with Plato’s philosophy—particularly its dramatic style.Check out this terrific sample of the Euthyphro with their students' emoticon annotations:
2a – Euthyphro: “What’s new, Socrates” :-> (hey hey)
2a – Euthyphro: “...Surely you are not prosecuting anyone before the king-archon as I am?” 8-I (eyes wide with surprise)
2a – Socrates: “The Athenians do not call this a prosecution but an indictment, Euthyphro.” :-| (grim)
2b – Euthyphro: “Who is he?” >:-< (angry)
2c – Socrates: “…He is likely to be wise…” ;-> (devilish wink)
3c – Euthyphro: “Whenever I speak of divine matters in the assembly and foretell the future, they laugh me down as if I were crazy; and yet I have foretold nothing that did not happen.” :-( (frowning)
3c – Socrates: “…to be laughed at does not matter perhaps, for the Athenians do not mind anyone they think clever, so long as he does not teach his own wisdom, but if they think he makes other to be like himself, they get angry.” :-Y (a quiet aside)
4a – Socrates: “My dear sir! Your own father?” 8-O (Omigod!!)
5a – Euthyphro: “I should be of no use, Socrates...if I did not have accurate knowledge of all things.” :-, (smirk)
5a – Socrates: “It is indeed most important, my admirable Euthyphro, that I should become your pupil...” :-> (bitingly sarcastic)
7a – Socrates: “Splendid, Euthyphro! You have now answered in the way I wanted.” :^D (Great! I like it!) Great idea! Good work!
I want her as my colleague!
In anticipation of our reading group starting in August, I've been reading Nussbaum's eloquent and careful defense of the place of the humanities in education in Not for Profit. But for every Nussbaum, the humanities also need a bomb thrower. Meet the University of Minnesota's Eva von Dassow! (Comments most welcome.)