2008 Woodie Awards
Teachers: Leave your opinions at home
Susan Holcomb
Issue date: 11/18/08 Section: Opinion
In his most recent column ("Education: Dropping the pretense of objectivity"), Malcolm Harris asserts it is "intellectually dishonest" for professors to maintain an objective viewpoint in the classroom. He argues that students should have their beliefs shaken by being presented with the more respectable opinions of their teachers.
I'm all for questioning the foundations of one's opinions, but Harris' argument is based on several assumptions about learning that seem patently false. To have his foundations truly shaken and to enter into a genuine process of learning, the student cannot simply replace his old opinions with the newer, better-reasoned opinions of his teachers.
My understanding of the learning process follows Socrates' account of learning in the book Meno by Plato. There, he asks a would-be student a simple question. The student gives an answer, but Socrates continues to question him until the student discovers his initial answer was wrong. Consequently, the student realizes he did not know what he thought he knew. But more importantly, the student realizes he still does not know.
This second realization, Socrates says, will make the student "glad to find out" what the answer is. Thus it is not the realization that he did not have knowledge before, but rather the discovery that he continues to lack that knowledge, that inspires the student with the desire to learn. It turns him into a seeker of wisdom, rather than just a supposed knower of facts.
This second, most important, part of learning is entirely missing from Harris' account. His concept of the ideal teacher deprives the student of that shocking, almost paralyzing moment when his pretended knowledge is taken from him and when no other answer to the question at hand is immediately available.
Instead, Harris affords the addict of bad thinking another, more palatable drug: the better opinions of his teachers. The thoughtless student is not forced to go cold turkey by finding himself without answers, and therefore he never fully appreciates the fact that he was not a knower. As a result, he never becomes a seeker of knowledge, either. He falsely believes that he has genuinely questioned his old opinions and never learns how to give a good account of his new opinions.
I'm all for questioning the foundations of one's opinions, but Harris' argument is based on several assumptions about learning that seem patently false. To have his foundations truly shaken and to enter into a genuine process of learning, the student cannot simply replace his old opinions with the newer, better-reasoned opinions of his teachers.
My understanding of the learning process follows Socrates' account of learning in the book Meno by Plato. There, he asks a would-be student a simple question. The student gives an answer, but Socrates continues to question him until the student discovers his initial answer was wrong. Consequently, the student realizes he did not know what he thought he knew. But more importantly, the student realizes he still does not know.
This second realization, Socrates says, will make the student "glad to find out" what the answer is. Thus it is not the realization that he did not have knowledge before, but rather the discovery that he continues to lack that knowledge, that inspires the student with the desire to learn. It turns him into a seeker of wisdom, rather than just a supposed knower of facts.
This second, most important, part of learning is entirely missing from Harris' account. His concept of the ideal teacher deprives the student of that shocking, almost paralyzing moment when his pretended knowledge is taken from him and when no other answer to the question at hand is immediately available.
Instead, Harris affords the addict of bad thinking another, more palatable drug: the better opinions of his teachers. The thoughtless student is not forced to go cold turkey by finding himself without answers, and therefore he never fully appreciates the fact that he was not a knower. As a result, he never becomes a seeker of knowledge, either. He falsely believes that he has genuinely questioned his old opinions and never learns how to give a good account of his new opinions.
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