Some Basic Pedagogical Assumptions

In what follows I try to spell out some of the assumptions that shape my practice as a teacher. Knowing some of these things might help you cope with a class of mine you are now taking or help you decide whether you want to take one in the future. Written down it all sounds a little crusty at times but the point is not to intimidate or belittle. Quite the opposite. I want to invite you to enter the conversation and to assure you that you will be a respected participant.

Level One Assumptions.

Everyone has a right to be heard. But this does not mean that all opinions are equal or that there is no truth of the matter. It is our task, as I conceive of it, to fashion out of the diversity of opinion a shared belief about what is true. This will probably require of each of us at some point that we give up a cherished belief or accept a gloss on that belief that gives it an very different sense from what we originally gave it. Perfecting this freedom with respect to our beliefs is what liberal education is about. "We are here to enlighten one another by means of reasoning and always to pushing forward the arts and sciences" (Mozart).
Not every matter worth thinking about is cut-and-dried. Often we will come to no final answer. About some matters we just have to live with ambiguity, lack of resolution, open questions. Do not be discouraged.! It does not follow from this that thinking about those matters is pointless. Understanding the open-endedness of such questions is a philosophical insight and the process that culminates in this understanding is an authentic way of life.
It follows from the above that nothing so straightforward as mere information is the point of philosophical activity. I only point this out because so much talk about education seems to presuppose that information is the whole point. What is the point? Understanding. What is that? Good question. Let's talk!

A Secondary Assumption:

We do not begin at Square One. We have been miseducated and must overcome this miseducation. There is considerable unlearning to do. For example, if your secondary education was like mine, it was a training in passivity, in the the reception of information and in obedience to authority. The popular culture, with its massive preoccupation with consumerism and entertainment, reinforces this learned passivity. Philosophy asks us to think autonomously and to share the fruits of our reflections with other thinkers so that our putative insights can be tested in the laboratory of conversation. Unlearning passivity is difficult, even painful at times, but necessary.

In other Words:

Questions are more important than answers.
Understanding, not information, is the point.
Understanding is fundamentally dialectical in form and substance. It lives in the give and take of real conversation.

For another way of talking about this approach to teaching, see my essay, Teaching as the mending of walls.

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