The Novice Boxer

In one of the classes I’m teaching this semester, I have several students who ask question after question after question. Ordinarily, this is a good thing – teachers thrive off of commitment and engagement with students. That most of these students comprehend the material adds fuel to their questions. They are speaking as if the text is a springboard, and the content of their questions reflects oftentimes their grasp of the concept and movement into analysis. Under other circumstances, this situation would be joyful and exciting, but mostly it feels like the teaching equivalent of the speed bag – and I’m the bag.

Last week some strange behaviors showed themselves during a particularly heated discussion about religious belief. I was barking at my students – nearly arguing with one student in particular – and talking over them. A couple of the students reciprocated, and so it became a mess. Instead of hearing students and their views out, I supplied answers or “solutions” to their comments immediately, because Lord knows I already knew what they were going to say (which, by the way, I didn’t). The image of a boxing match is apt, particularly if you think of novice boxers whose stances are off, their punches wild and their footwork undeveloped and messy.

Oddly enough, I recalled today that the novice boxer problem is one I worked with when  I was first studying philosophy. In my Honors Intro to Philosophy class, I made the habit of speaking in class – often over my classmates and/or taking the conversation in a different direction of interest to me. A close friend of mine and classmate said, “Becky, it’s like you don’t even listen to people.” Once, with a high degree of impatience during a senior-level seminar on Phenomenology and Existentialism, I replied to my professor’s question of another student, just so we could move on.

My intro students are genuine novices trying to cope with unfamiliar ideas and concepts, but what’s most troubling is that all of the sudden I’m showing so sloppily in the classroom that I’m bordering on being a bully.

I know exactly why this is happening. The graduate application process, for which I had so much hope, is proving disastrous on all fronts. I’ve had several moments where my weaknesses as a scholar have been exposed, and the constant refrain of “We just had so many qualified applicants …” (while likely true) feels like getting dumped every time it appears. I really thought I had it this time, and so being reminded that my work wasn’t substantial enough or impressive enough is like a punch to the gut every time. I don’t know if it’s emotional immaturity or what, but I can’t help but take it personally.

As a result, I have this unrelenting urge to demonstrate what I know and how sophisticated my knowledge is. I have to prove myself somehow, and the only way that is happening is by being a bully. That’s what happens when one’s insecure, really. We hang on to what we know for dear life and defend it at all costs. And in my case, nine years of discipline and attention to bad habits is undone in a few months.

New Project, Blog Pause

I’ve recently abandoned this blog for a new project over at this blog: http://weareexploring.wordpress.com. Some friends of mine and I are working with a book that asks us to do a lot of noticing and exploring. I’m thinking through the philosophy part, and they’re all noticing. The project has been up and running for about three weeks and some interesting results are arriving. Check it out!

In the meantime, you can respond to the following survey in the comments – this is part of my current project.

What fictional character do you think is most like you?

What new thing would you most like to try?

What is relaxing to you?

What is frustrating?

What is funny?

MP on OI

Our relationship to the world, as it is untiringly enunciated within us, is not a thing which can be further clarified by analysis; philosophy can only place it once more before our eyes and present it for our ratification.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception, xx.

Take the Hint

One of the most successful people I know – and have had the honor to work for, although briefly – is now sharing his secrets online, both in the blogosphere and by way of Twitter – my second favorite web pasttime. Kevin has experience as a trainer in the telecom industry, and lately I’ve been finding a good deal of overlap between his ideas about training and strategies for effective teaching and content delivery (that’s the 2.0 name for what I do … I think). Anyway, check out Kevin Huff’s blog here.

From the Archives

16. Use definite, specific, concrete language.

Prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract … It is not that every detail is given – that would be impossible, as well as to no purpose – but that all the significant details are given, and with such accuracy and vigor that readers, in imagination, can project themselves into the scene.

In exposition and argument, the writer must likewise never lose hold of the concrete; and even when dealing with general principles, the writer must furnish particular instances of their application.

17. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a pargraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all sentences short, or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

William Strunk & E.B. White, The Elements of Style (4th edition), pp 21-23

Et tu (quoque), Brute?

SA has a brief meditation on recent attacks from the republican camp on Barack Obama’s connection to William Ayers, former head of the Weathermen.

A story on NPR this afternoon said that just as McCain’s camp is after Obama’s character on these grounds, Obama’s camp is after McCain on account of his connection to the Keating Five scandal in the late 1980’s. As SA rightly points out, it’s curious that these facts are even relevant to the election. In Obama’s case, his connection with Ayers was in the context of Obama’s community and education-related work in Chicago in the 1990’s. In McCain’s case, he admitted that perhaps he didn’t make the best judgment in the Keating Five situation, but is upfront about his (perceived) level of responsibility.

In logic class, when we study informal fallacies we study three varieties of the ad hominem (against the person) fallacy: the abusive, circumstantial and tu quoque (you too) versions. These particular sorts of defective or misleading arguments make their move against the person making the argument, and attempt to discredit the argument by way of the individual making the argument, not the argument’s content. The ad hominem circumstantial seems to be running wild today, with people saying that McCain/Obama’s arguments aren’t worth listening to because McCain/Obama is affected by certain circumstances. In some cases – here in particular – the argument suffers and should be discredited “by association,” either with a member of the Weathermen or the Keating Five.

I’m not saying that character doesn’t matter – it certainly does – but there’s a fine line between judging someone’s character and appealing to circumstances to (thoughtfully or otherwise) associate one’s opponent with unsavory peeps. I can’t commit myself in this election because both tickets are flouting logic, honesty, and giving us moral red herrings instead of communicating to us policy, practice, initiative, and some way forward – some way out of the monumental mess we’re in today.

Teaching Reading

One of the institutions I teach at is overhauling the content of 1000-level courses. The mandate – the source of which is unclear -  is to move to teaching primary source materials that meet a three-pronged historical requirement (meaning that we have to teach one philosopher from the “Ancient” period, one from the “Modern” period, and one from the Contemporary period). This has roiled some of the many adjuncts in this particular department because these requirements impinge somehow on academic freedom. There’s a prevailing belief that adjuncts should be able to teach what they want to teach how they want to teach it … at least roughly.

One of the positions established in this discussion is the idea that we shouldn’t have to teach from primary sources because our students either won’t or can’t read them. Whether this claim has to do with the difficulty of the material or an assessment of student intelligence isn’t clear.

Aside from an implicit claim about our student’s abilities it seems also to me that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding built in here about what the job of an introductory philosophy class is. I generally market my class as an opportunity to explore and expand the concept of worldview – and I have achieved this with varying success – but the means of getting here involves teaching people how to read, or at least reinforcing and continually hammering skills of reading and comprehension. Exposing students to primary sources requires that they learn how to approach these sources in the right way. It also requires that you work for a sense of what’s appropriate for an introductory class. Teaching Kant’s first critique, for example, isn’t the province of an intro class, but Kant’s moral philosophy does seem to work in that context. It’s hard – and occasionally a slog – but it works, and it invites conversation.

It occurs to me that teaching philosophy is ultimately about teaching and reinforcing the attitude a student has toward a text and then showing them the rewards available from careful study and consideration. There’s a deeper world available than the one that passes when you scan a text – but somehow, we have to give students the skills to access that “lower layer.”

I wonder if this isn’t a form-content discussion. By this I mean that we might be so motivated or energized to get to the content of what we’re teaching (the Categorical Imperatives, Descartes’s articulation of the causal theory of perception, etc.) that we forget to help them build a structure for access to the material in the first place. Probably much of teaching is about the form-content distinction, and much about teaching philosophy is teaching people how to read. Again.

The List

Here’s the unofficial (and growing) list of reading and work for the semester. The list grew considerably last week when I found out the bookstore could not obtain the needed copies of my standard Intro anthology.

For Intro & Ethics: Plato, selections from Republic VI and Republic VII (divided line and allegory of the cave, respectively); Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan; Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals - I have this in three versions (Hackett, Cambridge Hist. of Philosophy series, Harper & Row); Sartre, all of Existentialism is a Humanism. I also need to read some Rawls to assist on a thesis I’m the primary advisor for. I’m desperate to create a unit in my ethics class about consumption, so I’m working through Veblen’s chapter, “Conspicuous Consumption” in Theory of the Leisure Class. It’s extra hard, so I will probably just use excerpts. I have to sort Velasquez’s Philosophy: a Text with Readings and start another intro class from scratch.

I’m opening my intro classes with a discussion about the work and value of philosophy (using primarily Bertrand Russell’s last chapter from Problems of Philosophy). I keep coming up with things and get distracted by all of my ideas, not the least of which is the quotation from Heidegger that I referenced in this post (procrastinating … again) during finals week last semester.

First on the docket for the thesis is Gibson’s The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. After I get my prospectus signed and submitted my target is to finish reading what I need to by October 15.

***

Both of us are hard at work preparing and planning. I’ve already started teaching (yesterday), so half of the teaching load is activated. My schedule doesn’t clear up until September, though, since later starts and an influx of Democrats have made the concluding weeks of August uneven. AV makes the switch to full-time art teaching (photography and graphic design this semester), so both of us are buried in newness. The dog has picked up on our bad vibes, but going on walks with her – the Gentle Leader has substantially improved this – seem to be the best thing we/I can do to get on track. More to come, I’m sure.

Morning Note

Brian Leiter has a link to a recent essay about connections between phenomenology and “anglophone” philosophers. I’m reading it (or will be soon).

What was that quote from Network?

Oh yeah: “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” Didn’t he jump out the window after that?

It’s week four of a five-week intensive course, and the cracks are starting to show. We’re all very tired, and mustering up the energy to discuss the teleological argument at 8:00 in the morning is starting to wear thin. The non-summer projects are piling up, and instead of working I’ve spent the entire afternoon looking for the new Harry Potter trailer on the internets (with no success).

Our lives have changed so dramatically in the last four months that I find myself having a hard time keeping up. I am trying to add routines and discipline – dog routines, new work routines, exercise regimen and eating schedule, etc. – to a shambles. That’s pretty frustrating, and things aren’t conforming as quickly as I’d like. When I think to just add one thing I think of everything I’m leaving out and start to freak out again.

In other news, I found yesterday that if I chew gum while walking the dog the walk seems to go better. Also, a good walk requires some running. In the persistent 90+ degree heat that has settled over Denver, this also involves a good deal of sweating, and neighbors looking strangely at you when you’ve walked in front of their house for an umpteenth time.

We also managed to get some planting and organizing done yesterday, which is a big relief. The backyard still approximates the Gobi Desert, but the flagstone porch is a glimmer and the digging and hoeing is actually going somewhere. That’s exciting, and it provides a really wonderful break from thinking about Kant or the design argument (and the “How am I going to teach this at 8am?” questions).