Category: Teaching
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Artificial Intelligence and the Death of the University
The universities have been under assault from the Left for decades, but now advanced A. I. has its destructive role to play. A recent article by James D. Walsh in New York Magazine, widely circulated among academics, reported that “just two months after OpenAI launched ChatGPT [in 2022], a survey of 1,000 college students found that nearly 90…
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On Relevance in Philosophy Education
Substack latest.
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Rate My Professors
I just now came across this comment: PH112A Nov 16th, 2005 Very into Philosophy, too bad he's the only one in the class that is . . . good guy, but the subject is just so boring, therefore you do horrible. Related: Former Students Do You Really Want to Teach at a University?
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Mom versus School Board
Here In case you missed it, here is a NYC mommy with a rather saltier tongue.
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Do You Really Want to Teach at a University?
Substack latest. Do you want to feed the unhungry in a leftist seminary? Comments and replies: Tony: One of the best, and certainly the most concise, essays on the problem. The mild criticism when I was at NYU was that the universities were offering "higher skilling." Higher infantilization was right around the corner. Bill: Thanks,…
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Lousy Teachers
They unwittingly gave me the confidence that I could do what they do, and indeed do it better, but they also deprived me of the intellectual formation that I had to spend years developing on my own. They set me forward, and they set me back. To cheat students is bad enough; to corrupt them…
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The Good Teacher
On a given topic, the good teacher at the university level does not teach the student what to think about the topic, but what to think about when thinking about the topic.
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Do I Miss Teaching?
I am enjoying classroom teaching quite a bit now that I no longer do it. With some things it is not the doing of it that we like so much as the having done it. One day in class I carefully explained the abbreviation ‘iff’ often employed by philosophers and mathematicians to avoid writing ‘if…
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Former Students
Did I help them or harm them? Probably not much of either. They've forgotten me, and I have forgotten most of them. The few excellent students I had made teaching somewhat worthwhile, but the unreality of the classroom bothered me and the unseriousness of teaching those with no desire to learn. It was like trying…
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Advice on Study and the Improvement of the Mind
Reader M.L.P. inquires, I was wondering what habits one should acquire to study philosophy profitably. I read philosophy books but I tend to forget most of what I read. I also find it hard to come up with my own ideas. Roughly how many books or articles should one read in a day? Or is…
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Euthanizing Liberty
Chad McIntosh sees an upside in the recent closures of philosophy programs. I agree with him. In conclusion, I now see the closure of philosophy departments, along with others in the humanities, as a good thing, for three reasons. First, institutions of higher education have already devolved to the point that the humanities are a…
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Somerville/Blondel on Education
Once widely understood, now forgotten: It is not expedient that all truths be indiscriminately communicated to every student regardless of age or temperament. Premature truths can do more harm than good; for just as it is criminal to anticipate the age of puberty with indiscrete revelations, similarly, intellectual irresponsibility on the part of the teacher…
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‘Educate’ and ‘Inform’
To use 'educate' in place of 'inform' shows a lack of education. Related: Whitehead on Education and Information
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A Paradox of Plenty
Complain if you like about the low level of your students, but bear in mind that you probably wouldn't have a teaching job if if it weren't for the decline in standards that is both cause and effect of the expansion of 'higher education.' A better term would be 'higher remediation.'
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We Lesser Lights
The great thinkers think for humanity, and the great writers write for humanity. The great teachers are teachers of humanity. Buddha was such a one and so were Jesus and Socrates. We lesser lights think and write to clear our heads, and to appropriate what we have inherited. Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast,erwirb…