Fun, Summer Syllabus Writing

Since the end of the semester, I’ve been having a lot of fun. And I haven’t been thinking very much. Or a better way of putting it is that I haven’t been thinking anything that I felt worth recording, or I haven’t been motivated to record what I have been thinking. Anyway, fun is the death of philosophy. Except that doing philosophy in itself is fun. So, philosophy cannot grow from fun– fun, however, often results from philosophy. Start with fun, and philosophy will not continue. Start with a lack of fun, and through philosophy, fun may be experienced.

Anyway, I’m slowly getting back to work. Today, I’m writing the syllabi for the summer. They are classes that I have taught before (Ethics and Introduction to Philosophy), so much will be the same. However, I always go back over the teaching objectives and classroom policies to see how it can be improved. I consider the experiments I made in my recent syllabi and consider how it changed the class, and if the changes were positive, I apply those changes to more than one syllabus. 

In the official syllabus on which instructors must model their own syllabus, their is an official plagiarism policy. I am required to include this in my syllabus, and I have done so in the past. However, as I think about plagiarism, particularly in the context of a class that focuses on argumentative writing and displaying the reasons for which the writer believes something to be true, I believe there is more to be said about plagiarism than simply the ‘rules’ that one ought not to break. Therefore, one thing that I will be working on today is a special commentary on plagiarism that I will attach to the official statement.

Second,  I am going to revise my learning objectives. Again, we are given some required learning objectives, but are allowed to include more. The learning objectives/outcomes that I created for last semester worked well, and perhaps I will not change them much. However, a recent peer review (well, the reviewer was a much more experienced professor) stated that while my objectives were overall excellent, they could be improved by using a few more active verbs. Honestly, writing is not my strong point, at least in relation to my peers, so I accept that this criticism is worth considering, even if I do not see it at this point and may ultimately disagree. Here are the learning objectives that I currently have listed on my syllabus:

1. Students will enhance their critical reading skills. Philosophy is inherently argumentative. This means, first, that the student will enhance their ability to distinguish sentences that express chief points, subordinate points, evidence, rationale, illustrations, and non-essential parts of an essay.

 

2. Students will enhance their critical writing skills. The writing assignments in this class are all argumentative and require that the student makes effective use of support (evidence and rationale) to prove subordinate points, and use subordinate points to support a clear, specific thesis (chief claim). Second, the student will learn how to organize these elements chiefly in order to make the argument appealing and easy to understand for the audience.

 

3. Students will enhance their critical discussion skills. This involves constructing different types of questions about the text, and then facilitating a conversation by critically responding to responses. Students will all be required to lead discussions throughout the semester.

 

4. Ultimately, students will enhance their critical thinking skills. The distinction here is somewhat arbitrary, because the previous objectives all involve critical thinking in specific forms. However, there are areas of critical thinking that are not covered in the previous categories. For the purposes of this class, critical thinking is involved in (1) finding error and (2) deducing which extra, unjustified beliefs were involved in producing that error. This attempt can be found in reading, writing, and discussion.

 Any thoughts? 

I’m not sure if the readers of this blog are aware of it, but I do have a bit of tracking software on this blog. It can’t track who is reading, but there are certainly consistent patterns that suggest there are a couple of individuals who check up on this blog regularly. You should feel welcome to post commentary Anonymous feedback is quite alright.

New Link/About this Blog

To the right, under the heading “Pages,” I have added a link titled “About this Blog.” It is taken from a post written a few months ago that describes the function of this blog. There are a few new readers so I thought it would be important to put this in an easily recognized place.  This blog would probably seem strange without knowing its function.

Habits in Writing the Last Essays of a Semester

As a teacher, something that I noticed is that at the beginning of the semester, I was highly engaged, pro-active, and went beyond what I needed in terms of reading and preparation. As the semester moved on, and papers-to-grade became my life’s primary burden activity, I did not have the mental freedom to devote the time I did before on unrelated research, and lecture preparation became more hurried. 

As I am grading the final essays, I notice that the essays are more mature than they were at the beginning of the semester. The ideas are richer in places. However, they also seem hurried. The students who had been doing well have more grammar mistakes. The students who had highly organized and focused essays for the second paper are looser now. I imagine it is probably a similar mental burden that I faced. As the semester moves on, and as some students become confident, some do not try as hard.

There is also the added challenge that, whereas my other essay assignments are staggered so that they miss the weeks that are usually reserved for mid-term exams, the final essay was probably due on the same day as final exams. I tried to avoid this, but I gave them extensions to give them more time…I think in general, I basically gave them more rope to hang themselves. 

Solutions? Next semester, I will be extra viligant in keeping the due date earlier than the last week. Also, I did not give as much guidance for the last paper as I did for the first two, thinking that I was simply going to be repetitive. Well, that guidance may have provided important reminders to some. 

I do not want to project, and perhaps this is speaking to my own habits more than my students. And certainly this does not apply to all students.

Time for the final push of the semester. Time to face a big test. Time for a joust with life. Time for a war.

Teaching Philosophy

Something I’ve been working on for the last couple of weeks is a statement of my teaching philosophy. Although I’ll probably make some minor changes, this is pretty accurate.  

 

Plans for Next Semester

Something that I included over the past two semesters that I excluded this semester was a regimented class discussion component. By ‘regimented,’ I mean that I made it an explicit point in the design of the semester and syllabus to include discussion sessions once every one or two weeks. The participation and assignments from discussion days were seperate from participation and assignments from non-discussion days. At the end of the Fall semester, I was feeling like the system I had in place was too rigid, so I replaced it with a non-regimented, but large participation component of the grade that I could use how I wished, when I wished. The intent was to give me the freedom to tailor the conduct of the class from day to day, based on the discussion and needs of the students. However, this created the affect that I would often put off small discussions while I was wrapping up a lecture on something else. However, when I start the day by speaking about one thing, almost in all cases the lecture morphed into a large discussion, and the large discussion dominated the hour. This had the result of nearly eliminating the small group discussion componenet of the class.

Despite the relative lack of freedom that the former method brought about, I think that the overall goods were greater than the alternative. Starting this summer and continuing, probably forevermore, I will re-regimentalize the small group discussion component of the class.  I should note that by ‘regimental,’ I do not imply a military level of organization. There is still quite a bit of freedom: in fact, the regimenting protects the time of the small group discussion so, in the end, the students acquire more freedom.

 

Edited

Laws, Concerning Grading Papers

If I grade papers, I stop thinking fluidly. If I am not thinking fluidly, my lecture will suck.

Essay Assignment

I am trying to think of an excellent essay topic for the last paper, and I am having difficulty gathering my thoughts on this. The philosophers that we have been studying in the class are Hegel, Marx, and Kierkegaard, and we are about to get into Nietzsche, so he is fair game as well.  The requirement that I have for this assignment is that it will require the student to utilize and engage with the text, while at the same time giving them enough freedom to choose a concept that they wish to examine. This is in order to encourage creativity and give some control to the student, which often makes the paper more enjoyable and exciting for the student to write.  I was successful with the previous essays– I am having a hard time with this one.  I must strike the right balance that challenges and excites the more advanced students, while being within the grasp of students who are attending and attempting, but who are still struggling. 

After Kant, we have seen philosophers change their focus from the world of things to the world of conscious representations, and how it affects the meaning of our life.  With Hegel, we see the “life and death” struggle between one’s self and the other, manifesting in the master-slave relationship. With Marx, we see how our relationship with our labor and our products changes who we become and what we value. With Kierkegaard, we see someone tackling the notion of Faith and Christianity. And with Nietzsche, we see how all of our morality may merely be a product of our conditions and our “will to power.”

You have two options for this final essay.

Option (A): The meaning of life– Both Kierkegaard, the Christian, and Nietzsche, the nihilist, present philosophies that deal squarely with the highest “meaning of life.” Rather than looking at it objectively, they both examine it subjectively.  In this essay, first consider your own view of “the meaning of life.” Second, use the critique of Kierkegaard and/or Nietzsche on your own belief. How would they criticize what you believe? Finally, make some type of conclusion. Did their critique work? Or does your view stand up to that critique?

Option (B): Knowledge and Truth. A central theme of this class has been the human’s ability, and inability, to utilize reason and other mental faculties in order to acquire some understanding of the truth. Both Hegel, discussing the view of the self, and Marx, discussing his view of labor, demonstrate that the self changes depending on certain conditions. In this essay, examine your own consciousness: who are you, what are you, what influenced your ‘becoming.’  Second, utilize the critique of one or both philosophers to provide a critique of this view. Your objective in this second part is to discover a view of yourself that you did not previously hold. You do not need to agree with this critique.  Finally, you must make some sort of conclusion. Was the simulated philosophers’ critique a worthwhile one, or did it miss the mark? 

In both options, you are required to demonstrate: 

A) An ability to engage in the text, utilizing quotes and analysis to present a supported interpretation of the philosopher/s. 

B) An ability to engage an audience that may not share the same views as your own.

C) An ability to write a well-organized essay.

 

Well, that’s what I came up with and gave them. They seemed to enjoy the prospect. Critical comments/critique welcome.

Philosophical Pomp

I am sure there are many people, including my students, fellow teachers, and even friends, who would despise my teaching method. Often, I provide very few clear objectives. Students struggle to understand what an assignment is about. Lectures are often not evaluated by quizzes or exams.

The struggle and ambiguity are the point. What does it matter to the average person if they can recall the difference between Lockean and Cartesian theories of the mind and knowledge? What does it matter to the average person if Spinoza is a dualist or monist, if he was a theist or not?

It does not matter at all, and it is the pompousness of professional philosophers, and their misunderstanding of their own subject, self-ignorance, that makes us think it does.

The struggle is the point, because if we are to be truly human and free, then the most important habit to build is the habit to accept and deal with ambiguities for which there are no clear answers, for which the individual human must apply the motions of thinking, rather than recalling misunderstood information.

I am also being pompous, because I would be incapable of teaching all of the fine details, even of Spinoza. It bores me to teach it, and my memory is too poor for that. Privately, I love dealing with them, but only with myself or with those who are also excited about them. Otherwise, I will save the pedantics for my academic essays.  I will value that which I do, not because it is valuable, but because I do it.

Teaching the History of Philosophy

The greatest value in teaching the history of philosophy is in the fact that, at least for the philosopher, the history of philosophy is a representation of the history of one’s own education and growth, and understanding that helps one better understand the current self, the direction of the self, and where else the self must think, learn and know in order to expand.

This may very well be a pompous thought, but it is what I have been feeling lately.

I am excited to learn more about 20th century philosophies, because although I learned about the continental side as an undergrad, and some of the analytic side as a grad, I have taken up very little of it as a teacher (other than contemporary scholarship of 17th century philosophers), which is where I have reached a clearly higher level of comprehension in many other subjects.