Life Question # 4567
“Too often these days we end up setting up our courses in light of what we believe about our students and we end up not teaching them. At best, we end up housebreaking them.”
Patton sent out an article last week along with the reminders about the Life-Raft debate: this was in it. It's an article by one of his past students (now a contributing writer for the New York Times) about a philosophy professor in Aurburn. Confusing? But this is what the professor said (again):
“Too often these days we end up setting up our courses in light of what we believe about our students and we end up not teaching them. At best, we end up housebreaking them.”
How important is this? To teachers, to students, it's all-consuming. It goes to the agenda of learning. Is the agenda in college to teach you to get out of bed on time, complete artificially imposed deadlines, and give you a piece of paper? Or is the agenda of college to addict us to learning until we seek to learn impusively and as reflexively as we breathe?
But I was thinking about this practice in everyday life. I mean when we make our lives based on what we believe about people. In sociology this process is called role-taking , where you put yourself in the role of the other in order to see yourself from their perspective. This is where the term "significant other" actually came from because this process is primarily done with someone significant to you. A child becomes cognizant enough to realize a parent is watching them and the child wonders what that parent thinks of them. It is the ability to imagine yourself in another's shoes with the purpose of evaluating your own actions. It allows us to have conversation, to dress, to make any social statements, and in the final conclusion it is the main ingredient in a self-concept. This is the process by which we decide who we are.
I interpreted the quote broadly to this social phenomenon because it scared me into a truth of my own life. Where I set up myself in light of what I believe about others or in light of their imagined perceptions... I'm rambling and mabye I'll sort this out later. But this dosen't seem like truly living to me.
Patton sent out an article last week along with the reminders about the Life-Raft debate: this was in it. It's an article by one of his past students (now a contributing writer for the New York Times) about a philosophy professor in Aurburn. Confusing? But this is what the professor said (again):
“Too often these days we end up setting up our courses in light of what we believe about our students and we end up not teaching them. At best, we end up housebreaking them.”
How important is this? To teachers, to students, it's all-consuming. It goes to the agenda of learning. Is the agenda in college to teach you to get out of bed on time, complete artificially imposed deadlines, and give you a piece of paper? Or is the agenda of college to addict us to learning until we seek to learn impusively and as reflexively as we breathe?
But I was thinking about this practice in everyday life. I mean when we make our lives based on what we believe about people. In sociology this process is called role-taking , where you put yourself in the role of the other in order to see yourself from their perspective. This is where the term "significant other" actually came from because this process is primarily done with someone significant to you. A child becomes cognizant enough to realize a parent is watching them and the child wonders what that parent thinks of them. It is the ability to imagine yourself in another's shoes with the purpose of evaluating your own actions. It allows us to have conversation, to dress, to make any social statements, and in the final conclusion it is the main ingredient in a self-concept. This is the process by which we decide who we are.
I interpreted the quote broadly to this social phenomenon because it scared me into a truth of my own life. Where I set up myself in light of what I believe about others or in light of their imagined perceptions... I'm rambling and mabye I'll sort this out later. But this dosen't seem like truly living to me.