ON TEACHING PHILOSOPHY TO UNDERGRADUATES: BEST PRACTICE?
We can use this page to leave comments and banter our ideas.
Here are my original comments from a Facebook exchange hosted by Jeremy Pierce.
Jeremy Pierce with Sophia Pierce:
"Why do my English teachers tell us that you can't write an essay overnight while then expecting us to write essays in a half hour on our exams?"
Steve HaysYes, in-class essay tests subvert the point of an essay test. It shouldn't be a test of how fast you can think and write and try to organize your thoughts under pressure, but how well you understand a topic. Your ability to analyze it. A take-home essay test is the way to go. Jeremy PierceOr do it in class but give them time to do it properly. Bruce Meyer: Or make the topic small enough to do a decent first draft in fifteen minutes. This question raises a good objection to in class essay exams, and I for my part don't test with them. But I do lean heavily on outside of class essays submitted electronically (to be checked by SafeAssign), for the sole purpose of having students HAVE an opinion and then to ARTICULATE A CONTRARY opinion; and then I encourage them to rewrite their essay if the contrary position they came up with persuades them, in which case they make the old contrary position their new "I say that" position. Bruce Meyer: Continuing: I read that a study somewhere (on the internet so it must be true!!) said that good multiple choice tests do a snapshot assessment of the student as do essays, to 95% accuracy. The source of my opinion here (the study I browsed) seemed credible at the time, and if anyone challenged me (enough for me to care) then that study could be found. But the claim has intuitive sense to me, so I felt ok to go with it. // If there's an off-FB discussion that you other persons (Jeremy Pierce and his readers on educational strategies) could continue this discussion on--optimal ways of teaching philosophy to undergraduate non-academic-professional philosophers--I would be much interested. I could even host it on my blog, beinghumaninfaithartscience.blogspot.com. I'll go set up a page to receive comments that we can expand on--just in case anyone is interested.
C.S. Lewis "tried his hand" at Science Fiction (The Perelandra trilogy), Children's Stories (The Chronicles of Narnia), and retelling ancient myth (Till We Have Faces). J.R.R. Tolkien "tried his hand" at Fairy Stories , thus The Lord of the Rings.
I may be writing comic strips, comic books, crime thrillers, and songwriting in folk styles. We'll see what comes of these.
Frank's been living since the time of the presocratic Greeks. He takes on various guises in different lives, different centuries and eras. And he always lives as a true member of society in which he finds himself. This is 1948, and Frank is a private eye, but still always is watching out for the lost souls, waiting to call them to repentance. The difference between God's justice and man's justice is clear to him, and he knows what is more important.
When I wrote this, I deliberately tried to use every cliche in the book. It's fun to write cliches, but not a good plan in general. So suspend the editor in your mind and just enjoy to ride.
Here is the first draft of an argument between the private detective Frank Angelicus and a yet unnamed femme fatale, shamelessly lifted from the heart to heart scenes at the end of The Maltese Falcon. Here's the scenes, to get the vibe.
https://youtu.be/wPT49WXC0Zo
Here's Frank Angelicus. I hope you enjoy it.
Ch. 2
Frank knew trouble when he smelled it. And how. That girl is trouble. Opening a can of worms, that’s what she was doing.
Gosh, Frank, I just don’t know what happens to me sometimes. I try so hard to be a good girl, but the boys, well, the boys seem so sweet, and I just want to make them happy, and…
Listen sister and I mean listen up. You’re on the fast track to nowhere and I mean fast and I mean now. You gotta shake loose of that monkey on your back. Now don’t go telling me that you don’t what I’m talking about because you do, and that’s for sure. Lose the drugs and lose the needle. Drop the heroin, it’s a hot potato and you don’t even know that you’re burning your hands.
Oh my gosh Frank, you used to be so much fun. Now you’re talking just like my old Sunday school teacher, Miss Alice. She was, sigh, so nice, and she smelled so pretty…
Don’t go Miss Alice-ing me, Little Liza From the Farm. We’re not in fly over country anymore. You can’t go around sticking your fork in the sockets and expect to not get burned. Life is too short for that fooling around. Hang up on that sentimental jazz and do what I tell ya. Do ya see what I’m talking about? Listen to me, sweetheart! Do you see what I’m talking about?!!
Oh, Frank, Frank, she sobbed. I can’t bear to hear you talk that way. I can’t just stop and be a good girl. I’m not on the farm any more. I’ve been bad. I’m spoiled. I’ll never be anything but somebody’s rag doll, and I know it. Isn’t it enough? I’m spoiled, and I’m used up, and I’m ugly, Frank.
She cried for mercy from Frank through her tears. She was a sweet young thing, a tender and delicate flower. A whispy breeze from Iowa with a two timing back heel, ready to spin her around at the first sign of a hard body and sweet line. Frank isn’t going for it though. He knows better. He’s seen one too many babe trapped in nice feelings, one too many sweethearts of the rodeo fallen from grace to know that they think they’ve sinned so badly that even God couldn’t keep them from sinking.
They were all sure they were the Unsinkable Titanic, in their fancy skirts and low cut necklines and a way to open any door they want. They were all so sure that nothing would cut them down to size, because nothing could. Nothing could stop them. But the naïve waifs get taken for a ride, used up one side and down the other.
Then they are so proud. They think that they are too good to need Jesus, and then they think that they’ve sinned so much that Jesus couldn’t save them.The proud daughters of Eve, they think they are all so special.But they aren’t, not at all.There’s nothing in there that a miracle wouldn’t cure.And there’s nothing so good and sweet and fresh from the farm that isn’t so corrupt that a beggar with two cents worth of truth couldn’t tell was destined for the pit of hell if she didn’t turn around and find the grace of God.
Listen to me, sister and listen good. I’m only gonna tell you this once. You’re lost, and there’s no two ways about it. But the lostness didn’t start when you was shootin’ up the horses, and it didn’t start when you were being some loser’s punching bag, and it didn’t start when you sold your sweet skin for some extra handicap at the big city races. No, it started when you was suckin’ on your mama's milk, and you yelled because you wanted it now, and you wanted it your way. You the sweet little baby who couldn’t do wrong, but you were born in pride and emptiness and you’ve been sucking up the milk of God’s goodness as if He owed you, just cause you’re you.
Oh, Frankie, (sob) Frankie…
And that’s not all. Remember all the sweet and good things you done? Did you think you were so good and swell for all that? Remember the time you made some home canned relish for old Mrs Graber down by the river? You thought you were doing something special didn’t you? We were just twelve or so, but even then clutching at straws, holding on to a spider web, it’s a wonder that you didn’t go sliding into the waiting jaws of hell right then. You were—I was, we all were—born in this bitterness and we were all just disasters waiting to happen--don't you see?
But Frank (sob) why did God do that? Why did God make me so bad? (sob) I didn’t want to be bad, I just couldn’t help myself.
I know, babe, I know. It’s nothing special with you though. And it’s not God’s doing. You remember when that lady from the city moved into the house for troubled girls, and she had that baby with the handicap, because of the drugs she was using?Do ya, babe?
Yeah Frank (sob) I do.
Well that’s the way it is for us. It wasn’t the kid’s fault now was it?
No, not really.
No, babe, it wasn’t the kid’s fault, not at all. Well, it was—but not in the way you might be thinkin’.
