[lit-ideas] Re: education
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, John Wager <jwager@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:36:54 -0330
> Julie Krueger wrote:
> > . . . . how do you, as College Prof's, deal with students whose
> > public schooling has left them entirely unprepared for College-level
> > study and subject matter??
I just let them fail themselves. Now I should add that most of the students I
have are either grad and doctoral students or 4th yr. undergrads. So if they
somehow manage to wind their way into a Foundations philosophy course and are
unprepared to work at university standards, there's really very little I or the
other instructors can do for them by way of remediation. But it's important to
emphasize that I'm/we're not here to do remediation. That is a vocation unto
itself and I/we am/are neither trained for the task nor have the desire to
learn how to go about it.
With reference to John W's very wise comments below:
Most of my students in Education care about the truth because they understand
that their professional accountability as professional teachers in the public
schools of a liberal democracy requires the ability and disposition to provide
cogent justification for policies and practices they support and practice in
the areas of curriculum, pedagogy, and school governance. The grad and
undergrad students who do poorly in my courses or fail tend to believe that
questions or issues demanding reflection, critical deliberation and reasoning
will be decided either by the union or by the administration of the school at
which they are or will be employed. Which is to say, they haven't learned their
Kant :).
They also care about the truth because they care about the kids they're teaching
or will be teaching in their classrooms. They approach philosophy, psychology,
sociology and history with the expectation that the truths these disciplines
provide will be of value to them in successfully meeting learning outcomes.
Students in the Philosophy department comprise a somewhat different form of
life. I postpone a consideration of their trials and tribulations and
ontological status for another occasion.
Walter Okshevsky
MUN
> Is a problem!!
>
> But the only thing students really MUST HAVE to be students is
> ignorance. If a student's ignorance extends to not knowing what
> education is really about, and why one would want to be educated, then
> that's where I try to start. It doesn't take up a huge amount of time to
> entice (seduce?) students into seeing that thinking seriously about life
> is a Good Thing that they want to do.
>
> I used to worry that I wasn't teaching philosophy as the structure of
> logical argument for a position, but I realized that the preservation of
> truth is secondary to the appreciation of the importance of truth. If
> you don't care about an idea or a concept, preserving the truth in
> dealing with that concept doesn't seem worth the time. Students
> starting college these days seem to need to just think about some of the
> ideas--concepts-- involved in thinking. They don't get as far in being
> able to argue successfully for a position, or in examining the logical
> difficulties in establishing a position, as I would like them to get,
> but they do see why it matters that they think about the nature of
> personal identity, or what makes an action right or wrong, or what some
> of the various meanings of work might be.
>
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