The New York Sophist

Thinking about teaching after the pandemic

My recent listening habits

As the term is progressing, I am already seeing my hypothesis coming back in an altered form. Here’s what I initially came up with at the start of the term:

1. Visual Stimulation is Required

2. Students expect completion equals quality

3. Interaction in class is unnecessary

4. Class is a solo experience

This is part four and the final part – class as a solo experience.

I remember my first time teaching classes in Japan. I did my typical pedagogical style of making a couple of statements, then pitching them to someone in the class for a response. Usually this gets things going, but in Japan it was a total non starter. I had to scramble a bit and take on the uncomfortable teaching style of direct instruction – aka bad lecturing (in my opinion) – to make the class work.

Of course this kind of instruction is only bad from my point of view. The worst thing a teacher can do is mistake their preferences for universal principles of teaching. We all learn and gain interest through different vectors – that’s the study of rhetoric really – and we should be open to being profoundly uncomfortable in front of our students. However, this experience really did stick with me throughout my Japanese lecture tour.

It was only near the end when I met a Japanese high school teacher named Tony, an Australian who had been living in Japan for many years that I understood that this was a cultural force. According to Tony, the best way to think about the students is that the teacher is the source of knowledge – there’s little one can learn from one’s peers. If you don’t understand something, that’s on you, and you should go off by yourself in order to fix it. Learning is a solo experience, done in larger classes because that’s efficient was my conclusion.

Maybe we should celebrate this epistemology as it seems to be the stake in the heart of group projects, something everyone shudders at. Reflecting on this now it seems that many students see class as a solo experience in this way, a reflection of being a head in a box (or a turned-off camera in a box) for a long period of their education during the lockdown.

What is the value, other than economic efficiency, for putting 30 people in a box, in rigid plastic chairs, all facing the same way, for 40 to 90 minutes? I don’t know if there’s much value aside from those “life moments” of catching the eye of a classmate you are attracted to, watching someone perform a mysterious and strange habit across the room from you, or relishing the schadenfreude of someone who asks an incredibly dumb question or answers the teacher incorrectly. No wonder people keep their head down and don’t engage in the traditional classroom.

This is compounded by the lockdown as all you really had when class was over was yourself and a computer screen. Perhaps there is a positive value of the physical classroom – the conversation before and after class between pseudo-strangers. In a class, students are all having an experience that they often confirm with one another in those moments just to make sure they are not crazy: “Is this professor for real?” “Can you believe that exam?” “What project is he/she talking about?”

Taking those accidental community moments and moving them to the center of the classroom might be a good goal. How does one make side conversation the curriculum? In rhetoric, this is easy – for me as a sophist I take as a goal the claim of Gorgias not just to be able to answer any question, but show you how to answer any question in a way that provokes good vibes, confidence, and a feeling of “movement” – what I’ve been recently calling in my head “the persuasive force.” This is the feeling of gravity you get from an argument that you know probably won’t change your mind but you can still feel its energy (dunamis) as an aspect of the shade of rhetoric known as “recognizing all available arguments.”

Students feel that there’s little to gain from class interaction anyway, further pushed on by COVID and the lockdown’s many flaws of bad technology use, grade inflation, and the horrors of death and illness all around. Students got more comfortable being alone and believing that they, in a bubble, can learn and gain knowledge without the assistance or interaction with peers. Badly designed group projects reinforce that idea. How could it be that everyone we meet was the “only person” in the group who did any of the work?

This assumption is broken down, for me, by turning the class into a space of civic practice – how to make and substantiate a claim, and also looking at claims to see what operates within. Assignments and direct instruction can be pushed to the realm of homework – the so-called “flipped classroom” which always makes me think of a bad HGTV show starring twin real estate agents who indulge liberally in tan-in-a-can. Moving the speeches out of the class has been very productive in allowing students to see that the comments made by peers are very instructive, but maybe not in a direct acquisition of information way, but a way to see the resonances and harmonies in our speech that can be used, abused, or misused to try to get another person to, in the words of Wayne Booth, have some sort of effect on another human being.

Daily Doxa vlogcast is live on YouTube

On youtube I’ve started to record 7 minute videos pretty much every day talking about whatever I am thinking about in relation to rhetoric, argumentation, debate, and everything adjacent to all that.

I’m calling these Daily Doxa videos, or Daily Doxa Vlog – but I am wondering if it is more of a podcast? What’s the distinction between these terms? What do we gain and lose from using one over another?

I think of podcasting as audio only, or audio focused. Any video would just be a bonus or behind the scenes style feature where it’s neat to see everyone talking at the microphones. A vlog is more about visual composition and seeing the person’s life as they move around in it, through it, and whatnot.

I feel like my videos are very low production quality in both ways, but I like the casual chat while walking around. I like how the backgrounds change as I am going wherever I am going in them. It’s honestly very helpful for me to help me think about my own thinking and review what I have been thinking about during the past day before hitting record on the camera.

I feel like posting these is like letting people leaf through my pocket notebook or planner and see all the things I’m jotting down during the day. I kind of like that because the threat, or possibility of publication here – saying all my thoughts out to an audience – requires me to think through my own ideas and throughs as if I were seeing them as another person. To say them I have to make sure I say them in a way that makes sense to whoever might come across them.

This means I get to hear them in a new way as well, which makes me think about them again and differently. Then the cycle has a chance to repeat.

This looks like publication/delivery but this is invention isn’t it?

Thinking about teaching after the Pandemic

My recent listening habits

As the term is progressing, I am already seeing my hypothesis coming back in an altered form. Here’s what I initially came up with at the start of the term:

1. Visual Stimulation is Required

2. Students expect completion equals quality

3. Interaction in class is unnecessary

4. Class is a solo experience

This essay is about the third one, the idea that interaction in class is unnecessary.

If you have a society that valorizes individual accomplishment over the collective advancement of people, you have a classroom that is seen as a site of efficiency rather than necessity. We have classes just because it makes economic sense to educate 30 or 40 people in the same class before the same professor. There’s no other reason.

Of course all of us who value teaching and ponder it often know that the bouncing of an idea around the room, the asking of a question that causes two or three shy students to say “I wanted to ask that,” or someone challenging what another student said are parts of the curriculum.

All of that was lost in the poor transition from the classroom to Zoom University as it was called in the United States. This interactivity showed that the physical presence of students together in a room was essential, even to those professors who don’t think too hard or critically about teaching. The complaints from all sides show the necessity of the classroom.

However it might be the case that students do not think of the classroom as important or vital to an education that is for individual gain. Many students take courses because they have to, or because they are required, not because of any curiosity or interest. They see classes as part of a pathway toward a job or a career of some kind.

The need to participate in class or consider class as a group effort is thwarted by the COVID lockdown experience, the idea that university exists to provide job training and job training only, and a society that values the individual achievement, never telling the story of the people who supported the individual and made their success possible (it’s never the strong individual or genius by the way).

I made this assumption and hypothesis long before the semester started. I’ve found that only in my hybrid course section do I find trouble. But this is probably because the “meet in person once a week and do the rest online” model is a terrible one, motivated by University pragmatics and marketing instead of pedagogy or principles of ethics (Give the customer options!). Many students in there did not choose the hybrid modality but were placed in it. But in my other courses, interaction is good.

I wonder if the interaction is motivated by hearing what one another say rather than impressing the professor or leaving a rhetorical impression. It is still a challenge to indicate to students that the interaction with peers is not accidental but necessary.

The classroom is also one of the few places where we can chip away at this dangerous narrative that we are all singular individuals without connection to a larger society: We are responsible for ourselves and our success alone; anyone who is suffering or struggling is doing so because of their individual choices. To challenge this we need instruction that shows how when someone advances everyone does by hearing that advancement or being privy to that person’s success. This is echoed in David Bohm’s theory of dialogue where he argues that persuasion by one over a group might sway opinions but will not have a value anywhere close to the value of the group suspending this kind of argumentation in favor of an argumentation that encourages everyone to take up an assumption and think about what makes it work.

Debate as a competition, contest, a battle, a winner-take-all proposition where evil is vanquished, virtue is on the line, and truth hangs in the balance. We can’t be stalwart protectors of the truth; we are inadequate to defend it. People won’t listen to scientists/information/facts. What can we do? We can repeat ourselves and become more intense. We can become angry and march around. But if we agree to debate something true, something that is noble and good, and we lose – well that’s bad because . . . it’s not true anymore? It’s not the right way to do things? Nobody is really sure what the bad thing is but it is bad.

Somehow if we lose a debate, it means that our good and true belief is no longer good. I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think what it means is that you need to find/create/orient new positions toward that audience. If you think that the position you hold is good, and good for more than just yourself (i.e. “I really should spend less time on the computer before bed” versus “using a screen before bed seriously harms your health”) why wouldn’t you want to enter into conversation with someone else about it? Why wouldn’t you want to convince them? Or do you just not care about people who don’t immediately hold your views?

There’s a strong sentiment out there that debate makes truth trivial, that it opens up questioning of things that are right, good, virtuous, and true. This is a very odd position, and one that unquestionably is anchored to a Platonic view – that appearances are more attractive than reality, and they will drive us away from the good and true if we are not vigilant. The truth has to appear in a raw and ugly manner, and if you don’t like it, you are an idiot.

But if things that are good and true need to be adopted and believed by a community, understood as part of a larger program of social good – laws and other sorts of policies, even everyday behavior between people – it has to be communicated. This means that it has to be engaged, questioned, interrogated, and altered. Everyone knows a suit is a great way to dress professionally. Simultaneously, everyone knows that a suit must be tailored, or it is going to look like a joke. If it doesn’t fit properly, it won’t be taken seriously – and neither will the person wearing it.

Adaptability in truth and good information is where debate comes in. If you lose a debate with someone over an issue or belief or truth you care about deeply, it can really upset you. You might feel like you’ve totally failed in the service of the good. This is a feeling based on the idea that you are totally responsible for making sure people realize what is true, and if you miss your chance, you’ve screwed up. This feeling is also based on the idea that people are incapable of seeing what’s good or right on their own and need someone to “open their eyes.”

These assumptions are not very productive. Instead, perhaps you can think of your own relation to your belief and re-examine it to make sure you really are right about it. That shouldn’t take too long if it’s a well-formed belief. Then you should consider what went wrong in the engagement you had with your opponent. What did you not have that would have really helped them get it? What did you have that really turned them off? What is the relation between these missing or present articulations and the background and attitude of the person? This can send you looking for people who are of your attitude and belief and see how they articulated their position to people like this. The internet is a great thing as it is primarily a collection of situated utterances that you can sift through and find articulations that work for you.

But also debating is a cooperative endeavor, like driving or dancing. You cannot just charge ahead doing what you want simply because you “know better.” You have to think about things like leading, indicators, yielding, speed, and merging. Tempo is also vital. The list can go on, but my point is this: If you think about what you are doing as cooperating both with your opponent and with the important concept/belief/truth/good that you want them to accept, you will find that debate is a very joyful examination of the different ways one can put something together (or take it apart). It’s in the realm of inquiry and making, not in the realm of smashing, destroying, or fumigating (which is what most people think debate is).

You’ll be able to find articulations of what is important and vital that you can adjust to many different people. And if they still don’t believe you, or walk away, or leave in a huff don’t worry – this is not the last time they will encounter this attitude or belief. You might be the person who has softened the landing for a future debate they will be in, or they will go home and google what you said and find a way to take it in that they would not have found without your engagement. This is the scariest part about debate avoidance: The idea that if you don’t win in that moment, there’s no other moment that might come along. People really do avoid debating because they are afraid, they won’t win or be able to convince their opponent, and that would be worse than losing. If debate is cooperative, as I believe it is, nothing could be further from the truth of what this engagement, this discourse, this art is.

People who believe serious social and political issues are harmed through debate are speaking from a position of egocentrism: “I know this is the right thing, if I debate someone, they will just use tricks and be stupid and make me angry.” If the issue is so vital, why not take the hit? The value is one that might appeal to the egocentric person: You find new and different ways to articulate what matters to you greatly. Secondly, you do the truth and the good a service by inserting your articulations into the mind of another. Although they dismissed them now, it might not be the right time, or it might be the first time they’ve thought about it. Later on, those utterances will return in their mind, and could prove to be very useful for a future encounter, far from you, far from this moment, where they will appreciate and even accept the truth you find to be so vital.

Completionism Perversion and Profit

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The music I was listening to when writing this.

I have an earlier post where I started this series of some of my operating assumptions approaching teaching in a real-life classroom after the COVID lockdowns. My assumption is that students see and feel the classroom quite differently than our pedagogy would assume, and some changes need to be made.

As the term is progressing, I am already seeing my hypothesis coming back in an altered form. Here’s what I initially came up with at the start of the term:

1. Visual Stimulation is Required

2. Students expect completion equals quality

3. Interaction in class is unnecessary

4. Class is a solo experience

I’m wondering about the first one, now that I find they are a bit more engaged when I use the board and not the powerpoint slides. Although the whiteboard is a visual aid, it’s not the type or kind of visuality that I assumed would be essential.

As for point two, I do believe that students think that if they complete an assigmnent on-time, or even during the course of the semester, that assignment should get an A. The highest grade is what one gets for finishing the work assigned.

The reasoning behind this is unclear, but I see a couple of different ways to make the argument for this work from the student point of view. The first is the argument from bad assignment design. It goes like this:

“This assignment is forced upon me, makes little to no sense in relation to really anything going on in the class or elsewhere, I don’t understand why we are doing this, I just need to get it done to get the points.”

This argument is based on a warrant of justice in equality. If the professor doesn’t communicate a sense of care or caring then why should I care? If the professor is unclear about the assignment’s connection to the class, the world, life, or even itself, then completion is the aim, and I should be rewarded. That’s the only think that is fair and just.

The second argument is a bit difficult but it has something I think to do with the idea that effort itself deserves recognition. This is not the boomer favorite argument that kids today all got too many participation trophies and therefore can’t function without serious recognition for basic tasks.

I see this argument as very capitalistic – I did what you asked me to do so pay me – but additionally and more interestingly I see this argument as a perversion of a claim that method matters – a twisted version of “show me your work” but taken quite literally.

I had a couple of students over the past year really get infuriated and perplexed that turning in assignments that didn’t meet the lowest requirements on the rubric in multiple categories didn’t pass. “I did it” was the refrain. It seemed impossible for them to understand that you could do all the assignments and fail the course.

A more direct and applicable explanation of how method is evaluated might be the solution here. As an experiment I go over the rubric a few times with the students and talk about how to improve quality. I also allow students to redo assignments if they made a low grade. What’s funny to me is that for most students a C or a B is a low grade and pretty much unacceptable, but sometimes when an assignment is redone it’s hard for me to see the difference in the two attempts. Perhaps their interpretation is still rooted in “getting it done” as the source of points.

Thinking of this as a perverse interpretation of a method-centric assessment modality is a great way to find inroads for addressing it. Yes, of course it feels good to game the system, get the reward, and also point out the silly relationship between action and pleasure by connecting the logic of it too literally (in classical perversion this is often discussed as an inversion of the letter of the law). But what do you really get out of it except a good feeling for yourself?

Assignment design should take into account this kind of pleasure and make sure that the idea of being able to do something with the material outside of the class, the school, the degree requirements is what is forwarded. Making the classroom the site of persuasive oratory, even on required assignments, helps change student attitude by articulating reasons behind the assignment (motives) that then the students will see as powerful, good, and helpful things. This can really move them away from the “pay me” or “perversion” mindset of completed work.

I hope to update some of these posts later in the spring to see where we are by that point. I’m thinking that all of these assumptions are going to change the more I work with my students this term.