Statement of the Whole: Well, we have been working up to it for the last couple of episodes, and here it finally is: one of the most famous analogies of all time. Plato presents to us a detailed picture of a cave and how it relates to truth, life, education, and really almost everything. Jason and Steve have fun in the dark, and then the blinding light. Come spelunking with us!
The Cave, presented in simplicity
What does it mean?
How does all this come into the classroom?
Less about pedagogy and method and more about what is happening in the soul of the teacher
Truth is way more powerful than any given teacher, classroom, method, etc. – so rest in its power
Summer stretching on the grass Summer dresses pass In the shade of a willow tree Creeps a crawling over me Over me and over you Stuck together with God’s glue It’s going to get stickier too It’s been a long hot summer Let’s get undercover Don’t try too hard to think Don’t think at all I’m not the only one Starin’ at the sun Afraid of what you’d find If you took a look inside Not just deaf and dumb Staring at the sun Not the only one Who’s happy to go blind
Statement of the Whole: Plato believed in real truth, truth more real than the physical world. If truth supersedes the senses, how can we pursue it, find it, and obtain it? Steve and Jason spend time with the first two analogies Plato gives us to understand truth through, the pictures of the Sun and the Divided Line. We hope we are not the only ones staring at the Sun…
What are the three analogies Plato gives us to help us “see the truth”?
Statement of the Whole: Out of the darkness and shadows of the past, a clear voice can still be heard speaking about education. That voice is Socrates, through the dialogues of Plato. In this three part series, Steve and Jason play with shadow puppets, stare into the Sun, and generally mess around in the beautiful analogies Plato has given us concerning Truth in his Republic. This first part simply introduces the fun.
Quote: “In every man there is an eye of the soul, which…is more precious far than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is truth seen.” The Republic, Book VII
What is the Republic?
A dialogue on Justice and how one might found a Just City.
In the middle, it presents the reader with three analogies concerning how truth is discovered.
What does it say about education?
At the heart of good government, ie. a just society, is an education in virtue and wisdom
Education is about a search for truth, and that the student might love the truth, not use it for power
By teaching us through analogies, Plato demonstrates the analogous nature of good teaching
Statement of the Whole: With our society rejoicing in that which is extraordinary, we offer numerous suggestions to the classroom teacher on how to “be the worst teacher ever.” Only by faithfully pursuing these characteristics will a teacher someday here those wonderful words, “You were the worst teacher I ever had.”
One characteristic of really terrible teaching is to eschew all forms of form, including outlines. These only make things confusing by making them so clear. So we refuse to offer an outline of this episode.
Books these days seem focused on helping teachers become better teachers, not the worst teacher ever. So we don’t have much in the way of resources to offer. But here is one work that you might find interesting after listening to this episode:
If you liked this Ciardi poem, you may enjoy his book on poetry, How Does a Poem Mean.
Statement of the Whole: How does a teacher balance careful planning with wise use of the rabbit trail? If you over plan you stand to be very frustrated, but the same can be said for under-planning. What is the balance? Jason and Steve run with a quote from Jack London down the path of Goldilocks to find the size of planning that fits the classroom just right.
Quote from Jack London’s The Road to start our episdoe:
“[The railroad tramp] has learned the futility of telic endeavor, and knows the delight of drifting along with the whimsicalities of Chance.”
Jack London, The Road
Steve first discovered this term and its counterpart, paratelic, in psychology class. It is prominent in a modern view called Reversal Theory, which has as a major idea the notion that modern man is too consumed with goals and plans, and should play more. “The two states in the first pair are called “Telic” (or “Serious”) and “Paratelic” (or “Playful”) and refer to whether one is motivated by achievement and future goals, or the enjoyment of process in the moment.” (Wikipedia article on Reversal Theory)
One helpful work referenced in this episode, which is getting its own episode, is Joseph Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture.
Statement of the
Whole: Jerome Bruner said, “Any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest
form to any child at any stage of development.”
Is this true? If it is, how does
this work? Anything or just some
things? Steve and Jason have fun
discussing this statement for half an hour.
The stated position — Jerome Bruner: “Any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.” (Rose, p. 142)
What it is arguing against: Modern Overly Air Tight Developmental Theory
Are certain subjects only appropriate at certain ages?
Or can, as Bruner states, any child learn anything?
Many today believe strongly in “age appropriate” learning, but don’t we hide behind the “developmentally ready” words because what is really happening is that we have not yet developed our own minds as teachers to be able to give a clear simple straightforward “even a little kid can get it” explanation of whatever we are thinking about.
Simple is not the same as dumb; often it is indicative of much hard and deep thinking that resulted in a clarity unknown to the novice.
The key here is the phrase, “intellectually honest form”
We must, as teachers, reduce the temptation to “dumb down” an idea.
When we do this, it short circuits the students’ thinking and growth.
While dumbing it down provides for no pain of learning, but there is also no pleasure, no celebration.
What it is not arguing
It is not arguing against real maturity – a more mature mind can learn things more deeply
It is not arguing against the need for layer learning – the same item may need revisiting regularly throughout a student’s life – you don’t learn life in one lesson.
How does this work? How do we call students to higher learning from where they are?
Recounting conversations from faculty development/joking around to students, bringing them into a conversation they can’t fully grasp, but can enter only partially into.
Break it down to the characters. Who are they? What are they doing? Limit them to one sentence each. Simplifying is not dishonest.
Images help. Classic example: Raphael’s School of Athens.
Write out on the chalkboard a thesis as it develops. When you introduce something new, when a student uncovers something good that must be included, add to it, so they see it literally fitting in.
Maybe the same as “d” but consider building what Steve calls “classroom doodles” which are documents started for a given discussion, put up on the monitor, and we thus can build across multiple days a map of our discussion without it getting erased after class. Often this becomes the “notes” of a humanities class.
Concluding Thought: Do we justify our pursuit of the “objective”
piecemeal, fact-focused teaching and testing not because our student’s age
demands it but because we fear the failure of our students? We “dumb it down so as to not let them
fail. Unfortunately, if they can’t fail, they can’t succeed! So don’t do that.
Statement of the Whole:
Many discussions and arguments about education seem to come from a place
of fear. Nowhere is this more obvious
than with parents. In this episode,
Jason and Steve consider when fear is good, when it is bad, what can be done
about it, and how to rise above fear to a place of peace and rest in the
classroom.
What Should School Produce in its students?
Joy
But there is a lot of fear these days
Grades
Get into college
Relationships
“Succeed”
While there is a fear that leads to wisdom, illegitimate and debilitating fears should be overcome in education
How are schools agents of fear?
Fear is a very personal thing: each of us should examine ourselves, and if we find fear, we should seek to drive it out of our lives
Closing Thought: The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Be at leisure and know God.
Poem: From the
Epigrams, by Martial (First Century Roman poet)
You ask me why I have no verses sent?
For fear you should return the compliment.
The Falling Asleep in Class Podcast Episode
Section 1: What is Boredom, Properly Defined?
Definition by Dictionary:
boredom (noun) — the state of being bored;
tedium; ennui.
bore (verb) (used with object), bored,bor·ing. — to weary by dullness, tedious repetition,
unwelcome attentions, etc.
Definition from the classroom:
disinterested in subject
unable to maintain concentration or attention
even on a subject of interest
Definition by examples:
Sleeping
Minimal effort
Exasperation
Pushing teacher to justify the subject – when we
gonna use this crap?
Section 2: To quote a saint, There are no boring subjects,
only bored students
Is Chesterton right? Justify… This sounds to me like “That doesn’t make sense” when they mean “I don’t understand.” Also, let’s help Chesterton here. There are also bored teachers.
What are the contributors to “boredom”?
Are some subjects naturally less interesting and we just have to take our medicine anyway?
How much of this is our love of specialization – I just ain’t a math kind of guy
The age of the image – are screens doing this to our students? Should I have to turn my class into Fortnite?
Constant battle: moving with the times vs preserving virtue — the “kids can’t pay attention for more than 3 minutes, so I have twenty activities every class” vs. drill and kill embalming
Aristotelian “middle of the road” seems most likely
Section 3: What is the solution for boredom in the classroom?
Identify the factors: praxis, content, reception
Be willing to consider that it might be you, but
don’t forget that this is an epidemic
Statement of the
Whole: When is it appropriate to tell a student they have not done
well? Are negative comments ever
appropriate? What should a student make
of long flowing red rivers of ink on their papers? Jason and Steve consider how to guide
students to better work without their having to put up with being berated.
Reminder about the Distinction between Art and Science being Key
Is all criticism negative?
Should criticism be used as motivation?
War Stories
Avoiding the extremes – humane critique is somewhere in the middle
Perhaps the old school was all harshness and correction
But perhaps today we have over emphasized being positive, avoiding all negativity
What are the keys to criticism?
Helping the student improve
Aiming the student higher
Raising their taste without crushing their spirit
When to hold back
When student is emotionally vulnerable
When the student is complacent and won’t hear you anyway
How do you help students to prepare themselves for criticism, to receive it rightly?
Patience
Consistency
Criticism is a bad motivator, so don’t use it poorly
Poem: Jason slacks off and suggests you go and read several of these Conversation Poems from ST Coleridge.
Coleridge’s
Conversation Poems – mentioned in Season 1, Episode 13,
this page links you to the poems. It’s all Jason’s fault.
Statement of the
Whole: If conversation can save at least the classroom, if not the world,
then how practically is it to be done?
Is there a form that can used to guide students and keep them on
track? Steve and Jason get practical in
this episode showing how easy it can be to conduct mind blowing seminars in the
average classroom.
How are Seminar and Conversation related?
Seminar brings form to the general action of conversation
Seminar involves several minds, a text, and form of moving through the thoughts of that text
The two acts
Reading a text
Discussing it with others
The four questions
What does it mean?
How much of it is true?
What does it say?
So what?
What is required of a conversant?
In short – able to read, write, listen, and speak: if you can do these four things, and I might throw in what must be behind all of them (thinking) you really have all you need to change the world, or at least your part of the world.
Longer answer in a coming series of podcasts on these four skills
But we come back to a theme you hear often when talking with us: this is an art, and thus is learned by doing (with coaching, apprenticeship); it is not a science so books/instruction only go so far.
How can YOU do Seminar?
The three acts of the Seminar
Reading, marking, thinking privately
Bringing each other to deeper understanding
Questions
Group inquiry
Applying the work to the lives involved
Improvise and adapt (Note: this is not just for kids)
In the classroom is ideal
At the coffee shop
In the home
Among friends
Summary: Conversation can save community, which is civilization, which is the world
