What Teachers Do

I think people have a misconception about what teachers do - including most teachers.

What teachers do is to make depth understandable and accessible. This is not necessarily true in hard science disciplines, of course. This is true in any class that provides not just learning, but learning to learn. It is important in any class that teaches critical thought. Philosophy and ethics of course are great examples. But also any class that teaches essay writing, persuasion, and reading comprehension. The tool that comes before the other tools in any of these tasks is critical thought, which is depth.

The alternative to making depth understandable and accessible is to remain on the surface. If the teacher doesn't have critical skill to teach or underestimate the students, the default is to remain on the surface. In ethics, for example, a surface argument is that society would be better if more people were "good."

Many tests I grade reflect the expectations and prior experience of the students that reflects not being challenged. Almost to a one, essays remain on the surface.

The test invariable read: "Socrates asks a lot of questions." Which is true. He did. If we can believe Plato, his mentor, Socrates used a method of asking questions in order to create self-knowledge or self-learning. This however is not critical. The fact that Socrates used the Socratic method is not something very deep to students who are learning to learn or learning to comprehend things other than historical facts. Students at the college level have seen only "rote" strategies and this is the reason they have not been challenged to go deeper. It is not just that their essays lack depth, but that when shown this they are oblivious to what the depth would look like.

The reason Socrates asked questions is because he held critical beliefs about innate knowledge. This point introduces the student to a "real" issue and, at the same time, helps them practice forming and analyzing "real" issues. This must be done in a philosophy class. It is also, as an example, the main thing literature teachers do when they open up a can of worms called "thematic structure." What makes literature literature, on a fundamental level, is the writer's ability to create a world around a deeper belief. Reading George Orwell, for instance, cannot really be done successfully without some attention being paid to what it is that he is suggesting critically - on a deeper level about truth and reality.

What I'm saying is that most teachers, in and out of philosophy, must be aware that the point of the class is to expose younger students and even higher-level undergraduate students to a new world of depth. This is the primary point and all the particulars that come after this (or secondary to it) need to be seen as reliant on depth and critical thought. The primary point is to expose them to fundamental ideas and also to see the process in the context of how all learning unfolds. The world today does not have a great relationship with deeper ideas, to be sure. This makes it easier for teachers to ignore depth and to survive in academia without it. The open antagonism to philosophy is an example of this. Teachers in all disciplines are part of this "critique" of Western Philosophy. It is the same debate from the 18th Century as natural philosophy moved out of the public sphere (the debate between Reid and Hume) and into academia.

It is my job as a teacher to make critical thought accessible despite preconceived notions about the circularity and impractical status of it. It is my job to venture into depth as often as possible. When David Hume wrote that we couldn't be certain about world, self and cause, I don't think he had this level of skepticism and rancor in mind. I don't think Hume knew that what he was creating was a tool that would sink philosophy for the masses. Reid, however, knew this and mentioned it every chance he could, including throughout his mild-mannered critiques of Hume.

""The most radical form of the complaint against philosophy is that it is as such irredeemably useless: that all of it is empty, pointless, word-spinning which wastes time and distracts people from worthwhile work." "On Hating and Despising Philosophy"

Bernard Williams