Re: Another classroom exercise

["Craven, Jim" <JCraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you. All of my exercises are designed to reward and teach those
who take an active interest in their education and to weed out--and deny
rewards to--those who don't. On another list, someone made the following
comment followed by my response. Please note that I am actually
diminishing my powers--not enhancing them--as I am teaching them that
what I say, perhaps especially what I say, must also be challenged,
questioned, sourced etc.


It's too bad that it's necessary to go to such extremes in order to
break students of the habits they learn from teachers who punish
critical and independent thinking. I can't say that law school grading
(based wholly on 3-hour final exams consisting mainly of hypothetical
fact situations and possible legal claims arising from them) promotes
anything resembling critical thinking about the actual purpose served by
the legal system whose doctrines we diligently swallow.
(name withheld)

Response (Jim C)
Well this exercise has many purposes: a) it is in the student's interest
to continually challenge content to try to figure out if this is one of
the bullshit lectures; b) they get to see what goes on every day in
government and the courts--someone pimping a case, with all "sincerity"
and gusto, that privately that person might be gagging on; c) distrust
all "authority" including--perhaps especially--me; d) cross-check always
and never uncritically copy down--and summarily accept--anything; e)
when you see someone like Bush, feigning "sincerity" and "honesty", the
more --and the more likely--the feigning, the more likely it is
bullshit; f) the students are supposed to be active participants--not
passive consumers--in their own education; etc.

Jim C.
 


My apologies, I thought you did not tell the students that some of the
lectures were bullshit.

Joanna

Craven, Jim wrote:

>That's fucked. You have all the power and you're using it to humiliate 
>your students. Great.
>
>Joanna
>
>Response: I can see from your previous comments ( So you're punishing 
>your students because most economic text books are biased? If I were 
>your student, I'd be pissed at you. Joanna) that you are obviously not 
>a very deep or critical thinker (biased not the same as objective--to 
>be human is to be biased) so what you call "humiliation" others might 
>call creative pedagogy.
>
>In my textbook citations assignment, it is extra-credit; the operative 
>word is extra as in extra work for me, sometimes necessitated by 
>students not being with the program and then winding up needing 
>extra-credit. Further, if students take the time and effort to find 
>texts like "Anti-Samuelson" by Marc Linder or others written by the 
>likes of Sherman, Bowles, et al they can find cites.
>
>Now on this assignment, just who exactly gets "humiliated"? Remember, 
>the warning is given on the first day of class and the exact number of 
>bullshit lectures is given. So who gets "humiliated"?: Those who do not

>take the assignment seriously; those who do not regularly attend class;

>those who do not cross-check but rather uncritically accept what they 
>are told; those who do not connect what they are taught about 
>epistemology, critical thinking ,logical fallacies etc and the content 
>of what they are getting; those who see themselves as passive consumers

>rather than active participants in their own education; those who are 
>as superficial, lazy and mechanical in their thinking as this person 
>Joanna (Who I hope is not a teacher) appears to be.
>
>I hear, I forget.
>I see, I remember.
>I do, I understand.
>
>           Lao-tze
>
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