The New York Sophist

To quote the philosopher Chuck D, “Hate is a strong word, but I hate the snow.” These are some of the words I most clearly remember from my days at Syracuse University. Syracuse is a place for people who love snow, or at least it doesn’t bother them. At Syracuse I had a lot of great experiences, but in planning out some future courses, I had a look at some old syllabi. I don’t remember them very well at all. I think the assumptions about what a syllabus should look like hurt our ability to engage students from the very first moments of the class.

A typical example of professor syllabus cynical humor/hegemony.

Syllabi are unmemorable. Why do we not recall what is on them, or when we go to check them out, they are totally uninteresting? It seems that I should remember more about why or how I got inspired to be in a course as easily as I remember an offhanded comment from a guest speaker. 

The syllabus has become (or perhaps has always served as) a disciplinary document, a marker of power, something that is supposed to affirm some difference in authoritative/disciplinary power between the student and the teacher. It’s an “invisible fence” or “shock collar” (are those the same thing?) meant to keep students “in line” and things like that. Doesn’t seem like a contract to me, but more of a badge of office – the sort of badge you’d find in a bad western where the sheriff and the deputies don’t seem to have any other plans or purpose but to be “in charge.” There’s nothing more to do but to display and exercise power. 

The syllabus cannot be a contract since there’s no way for students to amend it, add riders, or simply walk away. You might think there are, but with the low amount of sections offered by universities and colleges today, plus the necessity of students working nearly full time to pay for class, and the incredible expense of college requiring that they have to be done in an incredibly quick time-frame, there really isn’t an option for them to wait until another semester or for them to look for a different section. In the end most of the courses are going to be the same. 

I feel like most faculty get a secret perverse thrill out of the presence of the syllabus. Students won’t read it, so they know that in December they can sigh, pull out a copy, and show the concerned student that on page 14, bullet point 8 under section 3 clearly explains that they have no chance of passing the course. There’s also a lot of pleasure in the commiseration writ large on social media where professors tell stories of the students not reading or following simple instructions buried in a boring, nearly unreadable document. If we needed any more evidence that faculty are a bit disconnected from the world or “monastic,” this would be it. 

Taking a look at my syllabus, I find it to be the most boring thing I’ve read in a while. Stylistically it’s garbage. Content-wise it reads like a list of do-nots: “Here’s what we are going to read when,” “here’s how to handle this or that issue.” I wish I had spent more time on it, even though it’s just for public speaking, a course everyone has to take before they end their sophomore year at my college. I still feel I could do a better job presenting it. 

These things are important, but should they be the full scope of this document? If we answer yes, then we are losing some great opportunities to reach students. I think there are a few key assumptions we should keep in mind when generating a syllabus:

1. This is most likely the only writing you do that your students will read. If you are one of those obnoxious people who assigns his or her own work in the class, you have a lot more problems than I am addressing here, but you should consider the syllabus an introduction into your writing.

2. The syllabus is a common map, or grounding, for everyone in the class to formulate a plan for each meeting. It doesn’t have to work, it just has to provide the materials to execute the plan. Much can be learned from failure. 

3. The syllabus should not be written in a way that treats the classroom as a space of business, a transaction, or exchange of commodity. It has to resist the capitalist grammar. 

So with those assumptions in mind, what metaphors for the syllabus exist? 

Party Invitation

Here’s an invitation to a great party, a celebration where the guests will be the books we’re reading. The attitude of the syllabus should be one of excitement and promise of a great time to come. I often think about my course design this way – who should be the guest speakers or guests of honor for the course – but this creative and generative thinking never translates over to the syllabus writing. 

A Map for Visitors

Consider your field or your course a national park or a historical site. Your syllabus is the guide that is freely available at the entrance or ranger station. Visitors to the park should consult it so they don’t miss anything that the site has to offer, but of course they have the freedom to stick in one place as long as they like if they are really enjoying it. There’s no reason to rush around from site to site as there’s no real way to connect a “total” experience – that is, “we’ve seen it all” – to the pleasure or enjoyment or comprehension of the “meaning” of the site. Some suggested places to go and study the history of how the site was constructed (“who put this fence here and why?”) should be in there for conversation with the visitors should they ask, but overall the visit is governed by a moving through the guide by the visitors with assistance from the guide.

A Love Letter to your Discipline

This metaphor places the reader in the position of eavesdropper or the syllabus in the position of “found writing,” something that they, through fate and time, have become the audience for, but were not imagined as the audience by the author. This can lead to some really interesting views of the syllabus, including that of mystery that the readings and assignments unfold over time and through process. This metaphor also highlights the importance of working together to answer burning questions. Group projects are unpopular because they are designed by cynical faculty from a generation or two removed from this one. But if we look online we find gaming communities such as No Man’s Sky and World of Warcraft working hard in groups to solve puzzles and riddles. 

This does not need to be complex, but merely interesting. People love to see what a relationship is about and why someone might write something full of love and caring to something or someone else. You could cast the class in the role of interceptor – that the author and recipient are unknown – but by engaging in the list of tasks things can be revealed about that relationship that are insightful.

In Media Res

The class is thrown into the moment you are in right now as a scholar, facing some question or series of questions that are connected to daily life in the world. The writing must be connected to a world that the students can recognize, although the questions can be a little strange. Students then proceed through the course looking to solve the dramatic tension shown on the first day with the instructor as the “main character.” Everything bends back toward seeing if we have enough material or thought to bring to bear on the question. By the end of the term, it’s clear we have some resolution but everyone is curious about what’s going to be in the sequel (in a perfect play of this metaphor anyway). 

There are many more metaphors, I just haven’t thought them all through yet. The point of the syllabus should be to invite, welcome, and provide resources for the students entering a course, a place for exploration of an approach or a way of thinking. It shouldn’t be thought of as a contract (worst possible metaphor) nor should it be thought of as some sort of document that saves the professor frustration, time, or energy. It absolutely shouldn’t establish the course and the work of the course as commodities worth student investment of time in order to be sold later for high profit (re: grades). It should be as revolutionary as the rest of your thinking as a teacher, something designed to shake up the students, dust some assumptions away, or spark a fire that gives way to new growth after the burn of the term ends. 

I am going to go on record with the commitment to try to post every day here. I have such a nice page, such a nice blog, and it gets ignored. It’s the perfect place to work on ideas by sharing them with an imagined audience (aren’t they all at some level?). So why don’t I do it?

It’s because I’ve been “spoiling my appetite” with social media – the posting and reposting on Twitter and Facebook fills you up and makes you feel that same sort of goodness that sharing thoughts on a blog does. But the blog comes with a bit more chewing, a bit more rumination. It’s the difference between the calories in a salad versus a sack of Oreos. But I’d rather eat Oreos anyday. . . .

The point of this spot is to work on ideas by sharing them. This is writing as epistemic to be sure, but writing as a critique of epistemology I hope. I hope I walk away from these posts feeling somewhat dissatisfied, ready to type again tomorrow when the time comes. I have a fear that it will be too much of the former and perhaps push me back to something easier. 

To start things off, I’ll share some thoughts about Staughton Lynd, the great historian of the New Left (he was a historian in or during the New Left might be more accurate since he talks little of that time period) and he makes me remember how I used to feel about history when I was studying it and taking classes in it at Texas A&M back in the day. Staughton Lynd wrote a great number of great things but here’s a line that has been haunting me since I read it earlier in the summer: 

from page 138 of From Here to There: The Staughton Lynd Reader

What does this quote mean? For me it means that intellectualism is a constant labor/practice focused on clarification of problems as opposed to the distribution of answers. A former student of mine shared a pretty strange article today about a French mathematician who rejected teaching because he didn’t want to “be the one who knows.” Seems to me that the teacher has to be the most uncertain and flexible one in the room for there to be real intellectual practice in there.

Why is teaching intellectual practice? Lynd just assumes it. The reason, I think, is because teaching, no matter what you teach, is about practicing approaches to problems, whether with others or alone. We teach various approaches to identifying, clarifying, and questioning problems. This is what well-taught students can do, they can face things with the tools and experiences we provide as teachers. 

I hate saying “tools” because I do not agree with the black hole of discourse about education these days that simultaneously reduces teaching to both a simplistic material production (“the creation of tools”) and the training of people in right-wayness (“provision of skills and branding for the workforce”). Good teaching needs to be against both of these ideas simply because we have no idea, and should be honest that we have no idea, what problems are going to be out there for our students when they leave the school. 

Our teaching ought to last as well.  Critical thinking isn’t worth anything if it doesn’t last fifty some odd years longer than the class. We can cement this power, I think, by demonstrating intellectual practice and performance for the students ourselves by bringing in the difficult subject matter of our time. That might be the laptop computer or the mobile phone, or it could be Black Lives Matter, or the rise of American fascists (“rise” might be a stretch, maybe “appearance?”). Regardless of what the teacher identifies as the cause of the time, the identification and the bringing of it into the classroom is the first intellectual act modeled by the teacher for the students. That foundation has to be a good one if we hope to build anything over the course of the semester.

What is the “place” in Lynd’s assessment? I think here he means a physical, material activism but I base that on what I know about the man’s life. Does he mean this as a universal? I don’t think so. I think that’s what worked for him. But the question of “place” is a great one for us. I don’t know about you, but I tend to slip into thinking that the college campus is a space distinct from the rest of the world. It really isn’t. The students bring all of their experiences to the campus, and bad professors discount, ignore, or disregard these experiences as a teaching resource. The place to stand is right there with the students in the murk of it all and try to demonstrate for them the approaches you take to clarification. 

Place is also a pretty explicit call to politicize the classroom, which is a funny idea since it is already a deeply politicized space. People who reject politicizing the classroom are those who think that schooling is neutral, or at best objective, so they too need a lot of help with clarification and where to stand. It would be good if all teachers could be intellectuals, but they are not. The classroom remains politicized in favor of the workday, salary, career is your life value party which infects pretty much everything around me in my daily life. 

Politicizing the classroom is probably most frequently done by making the classroom part of the analysis of the class. The practices of the university, the school, or otherwise can come under scrutiny as examples and things like that. You don’t need to bring in giant on-fire issues from the community or society if that’s not for you. What you must do is bring in some reflexivity on the things that are being taught in order to give students some handholds on how this lesson, this class, or unit is not going to expire at the end of the semester – it remains connected. 

Lynd’s statement has the tone of a clarification but ultimately just makes me ask a lot of questions and investigate a lot of my practices. Perhaps that’s what good intellectual behavior is – to keep questions alive by continuing to pair down problems. 

I am going to go on record with the commitment to try to post every day here. I have such a nice page, such a nice blog, and it gets ignored. It’s the perfect place to work on ideas by sharing them with an imagined audience (aren’t they all at some level?). So why don’t I do it?

It’s because I’ve been “spoiling my appetite” with social media – the posting and reposting on Twitter and Facebook fills you up and makes you feel that same sort of goodness that sharing thoughts on a blog does. But the blog comes with a bit more chewing, a bit more rumination. It’s the difference between the calories in a salad versus a sack of Oreos. But I’d rather eat Oreos anyday. . . .

The point of this spot is to work on ideas by sharing them. This is writing as epistemic to be sure, but writing as a critique of epistemology I hope. I hope I walk away from these posts feeling somewhat dissatisfied, ready to type again tomorrow when the time comes. I have a fear that it will be too much of the former and perhaps push me back to something easier. 

To start things off, I’ll share some thoughts about Staughton Lynd, the great historian of the New Left (he was a historian in or during the New Left might be more accurate since he talks little of that time period) and he makes me remember how I used to feel about history when I was studying it and taking classes in it at Texas A&M back in the day. Staughton Lynd wrote a great number of great things but here’s a line that has been haunting me since I read it earlier in the summer: 

from page 138 of From Here to There: The Staughton Lynd Reader

What does this quote mean? For me it means that intellectualism is a constant labor/practice focused on clarification of problems as opposed to the distribution of answers. A former student of mine shared a pretty strange article today about a French mathematician who rejected teaching because he didn’t want to “be the one who knows.” Seems to me that the teacher has to be the most uncertain and flexible one in the room for there to be real intellectual practice in there.

Why is teaching intellectual practice? Lynd just assumes it. The reason, I think, is because teaching, no matter what you teach, is about practicing approaches to problems, whether with others or alone. We teach various approaches to identifying, clarifying, and questioning problems. This is what well-taught students can do, they can face things with the tools and experiences we provide as teachers. 

I hate saying “tools” because I do not agree with the black hole of discourse about education these days that simultaneously reduces teaching to both a simplistic material production (“the creation of tools”) and the training of people in right-wayness (“provision of skills and branding for the workforce”). Good teaching needs to be against both of these ideas simply because we have no idea, and should be honest that we have no idea, what problems are going to be out there for our students when they leave the school. 

Our teaching ought to last as well.  Critical thinking isn’t worth anything if it doesn’t last fifty some odd years longer than the class. We can cement this power, I think, by demonstrating intellectual practice and performance for the students ourselves by bringing in the difficult subject matter of our time. That might be the laptop computer or the mobile phone, or it could be Black Lives Matter, or the rise of American fascists (“rise” might be a stretch, maybe “appearance?”). Regardless of what the teacher identifies as the cause of the time, the identification and the bringing of it into the classroom is the first intellectual act modeled by the teacher for the students. That foundation has to be a good one if we hope to build anything over the course of the semester.

What is the “place” in Lynd’s assessment? I think here he means a physical, material activism but I base that on what I know about the man’s life. Does he mean this as a universal? I don’t think so. I think that’s what worked for him. But the question of “place” is a great one for us. I don’t know about you, but I tend to slip into thinking that the college campus is a space distinct from the rest of the world. It really isn’t. The students bring all of their experiences to the campus, and bad professors discount, ignore, or disregard these experiences as a teaching resource. The place to stand is right there with the students in the murk of it all and try to demonstrate for them the approaches you take to clarification. 

Place is also a pretty explicit call to politicize the classroom, which is a funny idea since it is already a deeply politicized space. People who reject politicizing the classroom are those who think that schooling is neutral, or at best objective, so they too need a lot of help with clarification and where to stand. It would be good if all teachers could be intellectuals, but they are not. The classroom remains politicized in favor of the workday, salary, career is your life value party which infects pretty much everything around me in my daily life. 

Politicizing the classroom is probably most frequently done by making the classroom part of the analysis of the class. The practices of the university, the school, or otherwise can come under scrutiny as examples and things like that. You don’t need to bring in giant on-fire issues from the community or society if that’s not for you. What you must do is bring in some reflexivity on the things that are being taught in order to give students some handholds on how this lesson, this class, or unit is not going to expire at the end of the semester – it remains connected. 

Lynd’s statement has the tone of a clarification but ultimately just makes me ask a lot of questions and investigate a lot of my practices. Perhaps that’s what good intellectual behavior is – to keep questions alive by continuing to pair down problems. 

The Motion: Live Debate Education is a monthly club that meets in Manhattan to debate pressing and important issues in order to improve the debate abilities of the members. It is a safe, non-partisan space for the consideration of argument quality. I advise them on various issues from time to time, and one of my great pleasures is attending the debates and writing up my thoughts about them. 

On August 24th, there was a debate on the motion: It is not possible for the United States to successfully integrate or assimilate Islamic culture.

Here’s an audio recording of that debate, followed by my commentary.

This debate was a great example of what happens when we don’t put audience first in the development of debate strategy. The best points in the debate came from the audience who demonstrated that they were keenly aware they were not being given the appropriate tools to make a sound judgement from the speakers. The speakers did an excellent job with speaking, but failed to provide more than a few facts and judgements here and there in their arguments – not once did a speaker reach out to the audience to say, “here, let me help you reach a conclusion.” Often times in our society we hear about the lack of facts in judgement. This was the important opposite end – what happens when there are only facts, or only conclusions offered to the audience. The questions posed during the audience portion were incredibly great suggestions of ways to set this debate up for judgement, but were not heeded by the speakers as we ended the debate. Here’s the play by play:

First Speaker (Proposition)

This was a list of different facts and information about Islam in the United States, but not very much was offered as to how this information informs our decision on the motion. For example, what does it mean that most violent or terroristic Islamic people converted to Islam while in the United States? This information is given to us as if it is obvious what we should do with it. However, it’s not clear – this information really helps if it is placed within a context of reasoning: “Because of this information, we can conclude that Islam is perceived as a reaction to US culture” or perhaps “Because of this we see that most people come to radical Islam while living in the US, it is in opposition to US values.” Of course, these claims need a bit more support than just this, but it’s a start that helps give a hand-hold to the audience for a decision. The story about Chechnya was also compelling, but was added as almost an afterthought to the end of the speech. This sort of parallel, historical example is one that really should have been a metaphor or story thread through the whole debate, not just something to end with.

Second Speaker (Opposition)

The second speaker in the debate offered a legal argument that it is perfectly acceptable under American law for Islamic immigrants to come into the country. The research here was good, but again, what value are these facts or this information without a larger frame or a larger machine to show us what to do with them as an audience. What do these legal decisions prove beyond the idea that it is legally acceptable for Muslims to live in the US? This was never explained. More valuable I think was the speaker’s use of the arguments from the “American Creed.” This is a rubric for judgement. The speaker could explain how violating this creed upends our other ethical commitments and our ideology in ways that are unacceptable. Violating our moral and ethical code would be incommensurable with our larger values. This is a weighing mechanism for the audience to use when they compare arguments from each speaker. But it was not brought into focus the way it should have been.

Third Speaker (Proposition)

This speaker was without a doubt incredibly dynamic and captivating. The speech was powerful – and I think the audience vote swinging greatly toward his side was due to a desire to reward his passionate speaking, not his argumentation. The arguments presented were not arguments, but claims of fact about the history of Islam. There are some fledgling enthymemes here – arguments that require the audience to complete the claim based on assumptions they bring to the speech – but they are not developed enough or placed within a context clear enough to let the audience use them properly. The thing to ask yourself about this speech is this: “What, if anything, does this information show me about the ability of Islamic culture to coexist with American culture?” Most of what he said does not meet this test, so again, we have a speech of information without much argument.

Fourth Speaker (Opposition)

Again we have a speech that deals in information but never connects it to a weighing or judgement mechanism (rubric) for the audience. The story of the young man on September 11th, 2001 was nearly the entire speech, and could have been shortened to two sentences to make the point that was trying to be made. What is important here is to clarify for the audience how to determine incompatible cultures. September 11th was a unique, traumatic event, hardly the sort of thing you want to bring up as your central narrative for determining if one set of cultural practices can co-exist with another set of practices. The everyday interactions between cultures seems to me to be what the speech needed to examine.

So after four speakers we have a lot of information – about other places in the world, about Islam, about particular people’s experiences in the US – but no articulation about what to do with all of these pieces. This is how I felt about the debate by the time we reached the audience questioning period:

The audience felt the same way I think as the questions were dead-on for what the debate needed for evaluation.

One audience member asked, “What parts of Islam are most incompatible with assimilation or integration?” The speaker replied, “All of it.” Again, this is putting factual accuracy or ideological truth ahead of helpful heuristics for judgement. 

Another asked, “Can Islamic Culture be tolerant of other religions?” This is an audience member very smartly trying to operationalize the terms of the motion in order to make them work like a machine that can render a decision. Again, this was not treated as an invitation to explain how to decide, but an invitation to toss more facts at the audience.

A final question was, “What does it mean for integration or assimilation to be successful?” This really gives another way for the debate to be decided, suggesting that perhaps they are incompatible but could be brought together “successfully” if we had a better sense of what counted for this? Again, the speakers did not take the invitation and continued to speak about “reality.” 

This debate was a stark reminder that facts and information do not speak for themselves, and that being right has very little to do with being convincing or persuasive in debating. What is always needed are ways for the audience to see how you think, not what you think; to see a path where all they could see before your arrival was impassable forest. Facts don’t help us, framework does. 

The Motion: Live Debate Education is a monthly club that meets in Manhattan to debate pressing and important issues in order to improve the debate abilities of the members. It is a safe, non-partisan space for the consideration of argument quality. I advise them on various issues from time to time, and one of my great pleasures is attending the debates and writing up my thoughts about them. 

On August 24th, there was a debate on the motion: It is not possible for the United States to successfully integrate or assimilate Islamic culture.

Here’s an audio recording of that debate, followed by my commentary.

This debate was a great example of what happens when we don’t put audience first in the development of debate strategy. The best points in the debate came from the audience who demonstrated that they were keenly aware they were not being given the appropriate tools to make a sound judgement from the speakers. The speakers did an excellent job with speaking, but failed to provide more than a few facts and judgements here and there in their arguments – not once did a speaker reach out to the audience to say, “here, let me help you reach a conclusion.” Often times in our society we hear about the lack of facts in judgement. This was the important opposite end – what happens when there are only facts, or only conclusions offered to the audience. The questions posed during the audience portion were incredibly great suggestions of ways to set this debate up for judgement, but were not heeded by the speakers as we ended the debate. Here’s the play by play:

First Speaker (Proposition)

This was a list of different facts and information about Islam in the United States, but not very much was offered as to how this information informs our decision on the motion. For example, what does it mean that most violent or terroristic Islamic people converted to Islam while in the United States? This information is given to us as if it is obvious what we should do with it. However, it’s not clear – this information really helps if it is placed within a context of reasoning: “Because of this information, we can conclude that Islam is perceived as a reaction to US culture” or perhaps “Because of this we see that most people come to radical Islam while living in the US, it is in opposition to US values.” Of course, these claims need a bit more support than just this, but it’s a start that helps give a hand-hold to the audience for a decision. The story about Chechnya was also compelling, but was added as almost an afterthought to the end of the speech. This sort of parallel, historical example is one that really should have been a metaphor or story thread through the whole debate, not just something to end with.

Second Speaker (Opposition)

The second speaker in the debate offered a legal argument that it is perfectly acceptable under American law for Islamic immigrants to come into the country. The research here was good, but again, what value are these facts or this information without a larger frame or a larger machine to show us what to do with them as an audience. What do these legal decisions prove beyond the idea that it is legally acceptable for Muslims to live in the US? This was never explained. More valuable I think was the speaker’s use of the arguments from the “American Creed.” This is a rubric for judgement. The speaker could explain how violating this creed upends our other ethical commitments and our ideology in ways that are unacceptable. Violating our moral and ethical code would be incommensurable with our larger values. This is a weighing mechanism for the audience to use when they compare arguments from each speaker. But it was not brought into focus the way it should have been.

Third Speaker (Proposition)

This speaker was without a doubt incredibly dynamic and captivating. The speech was powerful – and I think the audience vote swinging greatly toward his side was due to a desire to reward his passionate speaking, not his argumentation. The arguments presented were not arguments, but claims of fact about the history of Islam. There are some fledgling enthymemes here – arguments that require the audience to complete the claim based on assumptions they bring to the speech – but they are not developed enough or placed within a context clear enough to let the audience use them properly. The thing to ask yourself about this speech is this: “What, if anything, does this information show me about the ability of Islamic culture to coexist with American culture?” Most of what he said does not meet this test, so again, we have a speech of information without much argument.

Fourth Speaker (Opposition)

Again we have a speech that deals in information but never connects it to a weighing or judgement mechanism (rubric) for the audience. The story of the young man on September 11th, 2001 was nearly the entire speech, and could have been shortened to two sentences to make the point that was trying to be made. What is important here is to clarify for the audience how to determine incompatible cultures. September 11th was a unique, traumatic event, hardly the sort of thing you want to bring up as your central narrative for determining if one set of cultural practices can co-exist with another set of practices. The everyday interactions between cultures seems to me to be what the speech needed to examine.

So after four speakers we have a lot of information – about other places in the world, about Islam, about particular people’s experiences in the US – but no articulation about what to do with all of these pieces. This is how I felt about the debate by the time we reached the audience questioning period:

The audience felt the same way I think as the questions were dead-on for what the debate needed for evaluation.

One audience member asked, “What parts of Islam are most incompatible with assimilation or integration?” The speaker replied, “All of it.” Again, this is putting factual accuracy or ideological truth ahead of helpful heuristics for judgement. 

Another asked, “Can Islamic Culture be tolerant of other religions?” This is an audience member very smartly trying to operationalize the terms of the motion in order to make them work like a machine that can render a decision. Again, this was not treated as an invitation to explain how to decide, but an invitation to toss more facts at the audience.

A final question was, “What does it mean for integration or assimilation to be successful?” This really gives another way for the debate to be decided, suggesting that perhaps they are incompatible but could be brought together “successfully” if we had a better sense of what counted for this? Again, the speakers did not take the invitation and continued to speak about “reality.” 

This debate was a stark reminder that facts and information do not speak for themselves, and that being right has very little to do with being convincing or persuasive in debating. What is always needed are ways for the audience to see how you think, not what you think; to see a path where all they could see before your arrival was impassable forest. Facts don’t help us, framework does.