[lit-ideas] Re: The Education of a Swain
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:43:43 -0230
Ursula's initial position was perfectly clear to me and her further explanation
of that position only confirmed that clarity. Go forth and prosper, Ursula. The
only difference in our pedagogical approaches is the metaphor used to describe
the event. Ursula speaks of "waking up" while I speak of Socratic seduction in
the pub(lic) space of reasons. A Symposium requires nothing else. And for the
etymological mysteries of the term "symposium" I must defer to Jl.
Walter O
MUN
P.S. "She tore his argument to shreds. It had never happened to him before. He
felt helpless and profoundly insecure as a result. He recognized that she saw
things that he had never seen before. He contemplated the possibility of simply
ignoring it, but soon realized she had access to a world of learning and
understanding that he never dreamt of before. Oddly, he felt that this
intellectual experience was so personal and private that it bordered on the
sexual. But at the very moment when he made the connection between the sexual
and the intellectual, he realized he had to change his views on both of those.
He was no longer the thinker and sexual agent he had been prior to her
interventions. He realized that Alcibiades was right all along. How to live
tomorrow was the question." Anonymous.
Cheers, Walter
Quoting Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>:
> I clearly wasn't clear enough about teaching for that 'one.' I meant
> that the one student who wakes up in my class is worth the whole year.
> Two or three is gravy.... I did not mean that I somehow teach to that
> one while ignoring the rest. In fact, quite the opposite. The 'one'
> you describe (who has already woken up) can take care of herself. The
> 'one' I mean doesn't yet know that she will wake up.
>
> I've always felt that the responsibility of a first year class is to
> awaken a love of (and respect for) the subject. Unfortunately, many
> students are happy to learn the names, spit out a few theories for the
> test and grab the mark. But every year some few are startled out of
> themselves and discover a taste and talent that they never imagined.
> Those are the 'ones' I was talking about. Who the 'one' is is not
> knowable at the beginning of the year, only at the end...
> I hope that's clearer...
> Ursula
>
> John Wager wrote:
> > To say to most of my students "You don't know what you're doing, so
> > I'm only going to teach those who already know something" seems both
> > dangerous and cruel. Professors who teach for the 1 student out of 10
> > who "gets" the material on a high level misses the 3 or 4 or 5
> > students who COULD succeed, IF they knew what success really was. I'd
> > rather teach for half the ignorant than for the one already educated.
> >
> >
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