Teaching Introductory Collegiate Philosophy

Teaching Introductory Philosophy can be one of the funnest and most fulfilling jobs that one can attain. I personally have taught over 60 philosophy courses to groups that range in size from 8 people to 50. Over the last 5 years, I had taught at no less than eleven different campus regional centers throughout the lower half of the lower peninsula of the State of Michigan. My voice has reached over 2000 ears, albeit some more hazily than others, with regards to philosophy topics and subject matter.

They say that experience is the best teacher and as teachers we have to translate that experience into learning experiences for our students. The trouble nowadays seems to be mostly with the 'want' to learn what we have to offer. There are a few key things I have picked up along the way to try to address that. There are several things we teachers need to understand to be able to convey the ideas that are being presented in most philosophy texts and therefore most philosophy courses.

Most people do not think as deeply as philosophical inquiry goes when they are living their own lives outside of the classroom. Indeed, most of the students are struggling to survive while we speak of less than real issues to them. The key to maintaining the student's attention is to make the session less of a display of rigorous analysis (a dry mentally descriptive desert) and strive to make it more of a mental play time where creative use of analysis is a tool to achieving enjoyment from the topics covered. Simple - we have to like what we are doing or we won't do it long.

Examples of topics to maintain their interest can be as simple as discussing proposed paradoxes in time travel as opposed to the dryness of temporal theories in themselves. Ask them how time travel may be expected to impact their own lives. Instead of simply conjecturing about life on other planets, we can speak of the expansion of the 'life zone' in our own solar system to possibly include the moons of Jupiter and maybe even the moons of Saturn given the discovery of life in the deep oceans which developed in similar environmental conditions as those moons. What could be there? Harnessing imagination is our job and we can do well if we make the inquiry broad enough to allow anyone to answer in their own way. Allowing everyone to participate.

Do not be shy to consider the outrageous. Sometimes the maximum application or retraction of the effects of a given principle can produce hilarious results and these should be expressed as people need to find their comfort level in your classroom and a variety of humorous derivations can be the key. Make it fun. Make it interesting.

Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that these are questions which have been asked for centuries if not for thousands of years. We are still asking the same things! That puts the load of having to answer questions and be right or correct off the shoulders of the philosopher. We do not have to have an answer that is 100% correct and any conjecture towards an answer or solution prompts debate concerning evidence and reasoning. Yeaaaay!! That is what philosophy is all about! We do not need to be the guru of the process, we just need to be willing to offer conjecture and charitable criticism of theory.

Keep the students talking, expressing their ideas, to you, as well as to each other is more than analysis can do on its own. Papers may display rigor of thought and logical derivation and even organization and should be included in the curriculum planning for the courses and departmental offerings, but when it all comes right down to it the only way we, as teachers, really know if these students are getting the philosophical process as an applicable tool is to get them to express themselves. Interest, imagination, humor and even admissions of ignorance and leaps into pure conjecture can help one do that.