I read and think well in the morning. It’s a good time to think about lectures. I grade poorly, because I spend too much time on each paper. 

Perhaps a good way to start philosophical discussions in class, to prompt thought and curiosity, is to ask the students, “in general, what do most people think about…” But just be ready to encounter ideas that aren’t anticipated, or even sensical. Truly, it is a learning experience when an answer is given that would seem a priori improbable.

I feel the United States of America might be something clean again. Or, perhaps, not again, but perhaps we will finally get back to the march toward the old goal of what we want America to be, recognizing that simply thinking America is great does not make it so.

I want us to work together. I want our citizens to be committed to all citizens, and not just to themselves and their personal values. We should all be free to build the loving and stabilizing human relationships we wish, and that our views are considered and weighed, and not merely accepted by our fellow citizens. 

America can be beautiful, and this is the first time I have felt that since I was a naive, but optimistic and patriotic Marine.

Professionalism is useful for the sake of creating a certain environment, and as a tool for helping students grow. But helping students grow is the goal, not professionalism. Do not seek to become a professional if it sacrifices one’s ability to teach.

The book that I am using is Louis Pojman’s and Michael Rea’s ‘Philosophy of Religion’ anthology, 4th ed, by Thomson and Wadsworth, 2008. It is an alright book, but I preferred the older editions that were prior Rhea. 

Anyway, the book’s selections have plenty of non-technical but philosophical texts, such as James’ ‘Will to Believe’ and Russell’s ‘Free Man’s Worship,’ along with technical essays such as Plantiga’s defenses of evil and free will.

A strategy I employed in teaching across the board, initially, was to have one class per week dedicated to the discussion of the texts, then a lecture. However, the community college environment usually means that there are not enough people willing or ready to dive into a critical analysis of the technical works. Meanwhile, lectures, while useful in both cases, have their greatest strength while discussing technical works. Therefore, in the next semester, I will try to have discussions solely on non-technical pieces, while lectures more devoted to the technical pieces. However, there will be cross-over, as the technical pieces should still be discussed by students. But perhaps using the discussion after the lecture, while presenting them with a specific problem to solve as a group, will be the most effective way to prepare them for that discussion (generally, we discuss first to stimulate curiousity and cultivate students’ opinions, then follow that with a lecture).

I am relearning just how difficult, and important it is to organize a paper while writing. When dealing with a problem I am curious about, I just want to write spontaneously, and hope that the thoughts go in the right direction. It is important to let the spontaneity go wild for a little while. But progressing along that path, I soon get a chaotic mass of ideas without much clarity. What I am trying to say sort of makes sense in my mind, but it is not coming across in the essay. At this point, it is imperative to stop, and then create an outline. What does each component try to say to the whole? What is the argument the post is saying? If there is something that appeared relevant at first, but is not obvious now, what else do I have to write in order for the connection to be made? What was my mind hiding from my consciousness? It is difficult. There are different phases to writing. One might be able to pull a 5 page paper from the top of the head when the subject is well understood, but longer than that, it becomes difficult.

On the contrary, there is much to be said about re-writing the entire thing. One cannot progress in an essay without a firm foundation. But a foundation about what? The first step requires the stream of consciousness, an attempted explosion of ideas that is basically directed at the subject. However, the more powerful, and the greater quantity of ideas that is coming forth, the harder it is to direct it all at the same specific subject, and to do so clearly. Do what you can: getting these thoughts down in writing is riding a wild bull: the ideas will not stop and wait for you to think about how best to communicate the ideas to your audience. But once all spewed out, it is impossible to know what the next logical step to the paper is, because the paper has yet to take on a logical shape. Therefore, when the ideas stop coming, it is time to organize. Organize what is there as best as possible, meticulously crafting each sentence to best express the idea clearly. If the writer doesn’t know what sentence means, then the reader will never figure it out. 

Organization is key. I never accepted that as an undergrad, at least not as anything more than a platitude. But it is key.

Unlike Ethics, which is a chronological, Western Canonical based course, my Philosophy of Religion is a problems based course.  Due to the subject, the class is easily engagable.  It is also more likely to stray and motivate interruptions, often stifling forward progress. So the “Phil-Rel” class (which I pronounce “Phil-Ril” because it rhymes, and I like to pretend I am a poet of excellent talent) has a very different class texture than Ethics, which is more inclined to smooth sailing (students are often easily engagable, but less excitable, allowing me more control to lay my planned narrative).

Perhaps because of this different texture, Phil-Ril can never match my Ethics in the goals I set forth below. However, I would like some central theory to direct the sequence of problems, with an eye toward how each problem is emotionally impacting the students (because the emotional state of the students has everything to do with what they are capable of learning at any given time in the semester, and some lessons work better immediately following others, enhancing the value of both…but enough platitudes. I will talk about this later). 

Anyway, the major problems that we have discussed in Phil-Ril are;

• Relationship of soul/mind to the body.

• Problem of Evil (utilizing Hume, Dostoevsky, Leibniz (I lecture about him without the reading), and Plantinga

• Right to Believe (through William James, William Clifford: James is phenomenal, and Cilfford makes him better, despite Clifford’s boring essay)

• Validity of Religious Pluralism, Exclusivism, Relativism, etc.

• Conflict between Science and Religion, if there is one (Galileo, Dawkins, Gould, Pope John Paul II)

• Evolution and Intelligent Design (Neat, but essays in my book are lopsided– the ID essays are byzantine and/or repetitive…there are good essays to explore ID, but these are not good examples. By the way, I use this conflict not because I think ID to be a valid theory, but the students generally do not have the intellectual justification for rejecting it or accepting it, and I want to teach to their current knowledge level and understanding. That is how you spark curiousity and a sense of self-efficacy in thinking.)

• Cosmological, Ontological, Teleological Arguments for God’s existence. For reasons just listed, I will probably never teach Cosmo and Onto in a community college again. They are so archaic, depending on such outdated modes of thinking (even modern re-runs of it have a distinctive scholastic stench), that they do not incite curiosity or excitement at all. They are only useful as demonstrations about how brilliant minds can be ridiculously stupid if they don’t understand effective modes of thinking.

Ethics is my “flagship” course, being a course that I have taught every semester, including summer, since the beginning…although I have only been teaching a bit over a year. Anyway, this course is the closest one I have to accomplishing all of the goals I had set forth below (although I am trying some new things out this semester, so only time will tell if this is an improvement or not). However, I am rethinking all of my courses, and I am going to start here. This is an unabashedly canonical Western philosophy course, unlike some of my other courses. Despite its limitations, it is useful because, when given chronologically, there is a story that runs through the 2.4 millenia since Plato, and that story is useful for instruction. These are the philosophers that I have used so far:

1.Plato
2. Aristotle
3. Hobbes
4. Locke
5. Spinoza
6. Kant
7. Mill
8. Nietzsche
9. Rawls
10. Nussbaum

This is usually bolstered here and there with some Dewey and sections from the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution. I have never taught all of these in a single semester, but it had been the basic outline for the first three semesters. This semester, I am trying out one of those “Reacting to the Past” games, Athens 403 bc, to teach Plato’s Republic in November, almost topping off a semester that started with Plato’s Apology, Aristotle’s Ethics, Hobbes’s Leviathan, and Spinoza’s Ethics. I really want to do Nietzsche before the end, but I do not like leaving students with Nietzsche. His ideas tend to be explosive and sometimes depressing for students, and I have actually found great use of Aristotle after Nietzsche, despite the lack of chronology there.

The formatting of this blog is screwed up, and I have no idea how to fix it. Why, in my previous post, is everything just fine until it hits the bullet points? After that, there is no spacing whatsoever. Grr.

I am finding it very interesting to experiment with different strategies in teaching a college course in philosophy. Obviously, I want to teach perfectly, and design a perfect course.  Yes, I am setting my hopes impossibly high, but striving to get things as great as possible is the ultimate goal. Conceptually, there is no perfect class in general, but I do have some things in mind in terms of end goals, and I think it is possible, at least conceptually, to construct a perfect course for those goals. 

End Goals of my courses:

I have written versions of this many, many times: every time I plan a new semester or write a syllabus, I write end goals, and I re-think them every time. However, I am never satisfied with my answer. I am always dancing around the issue, but never striking at its heart. So, I will make an attempt here, again, while I have the luxury of three months before Spring semester begins.

I wonder if it is possible to express the essence of my ideas in a single sentence. A unifying theory, so to speak. I don’t know. But trying to guess at that essence is not a good place to start. Perhaps a good place to start is a laundry list, with no eye toward order, importance, or inclusion. 

• Develop critical reading, writing, speaking, and thinking skills. (incredibly vague for such an important subject, nut I’ll just let it there for now)
• Challenge the prejudices, or pre-conceived notions of students.
• Present myself, not as a profess-er or lecture-er, but a teacher, and guide.
• Provide means, a practice ground, for students to practice independent, free, critical thinking (these are not exactly synonyms). 
• Be gentle, not commandeering. Follow, to some extent, Confucious’ notion that the virtuous leader leads while apparently doing nothing. That is, students’ instruction should well up within themselves, rather than given to them by me. 
• Teach students how to be their own teachers.
• Stay engaging, interesting.
• Provide the entire semester with a basic arc, one that puts the philosophy in such a way that each philosopher profoundly builds upon, or destroys, the previous philosopher, simulating an evolution in thought and perspectice.
• The student should be able to understand their own perspective at the end of the semester better than they had before.
• The student should be able to encouraged, almost forced, to expand their perspective by the end of the semester.
• The student should have a clear understanding of what their perspective was and is, and of the process by which the perspective was challenged and expanded.

I’m going to gush for a second.

I love teaching. It’s incredible. Best feeling ever.

Something has been missing from the classes lately. Things are going well, but I’m not making the punch. Maybe I have too many classes to get any time to think creatively. Maybe it’s the students. Maybe it’s the new class design. Regardless, I’m looking for a solution. 

More later.