By way of “trying to help” by way of a shorn arrogance

Arian Cato
Dr. Warren
Philosophy 3 9-10AM
2.8.10

Critique #1, upon entering the third week of class

Positive:
One should keep in mind that the philosophizing that occurs within the classroom is first of all philosophizing-within-the-classroom, and to this point I found it to be most behooving the way the Doctor directed all waylays against his highlighter policy in his immediate response to the malicious pressures of the students demanding his explanation, as to settle what amounts education-wise to attacks for attack’s sake. The answer was in the wings, as stated several times, but the class would not wait for the moment to take off; these were obviously personal attacks to embarrass the Doctor. Though it is important for flexibility of curriculum it is at the least equally important to maintain the positions of power within the class, and in this case, the democratic potential of the students was not endowed in syllabus or in the preliminary portion of the class with the capacity to deviate from the expectation/norm of sticking to classroom material. True, the laying out of expectations and the student’s powers were not explicated, but because of this default the expectations should follow the status quo as determined by the expectations common to other classes, if not those tenets legally binding students in department charters. The significance of the institutionality of the classroom comes to light when we return to my first pointing to it in my introductory sentence: this is philosophizing-within-the-classroom, and the “gist” matters, and “specifics” can be overlooked, that is, overlooked in respect to the fact that on can philosophe-on-one’s-own-time, and not take up the time of the class or subvert the course’s design without offering a better alternative. Mere subversion from a presumptuous student over someone who justifiably can impart knowledge is destructive in all likelihood—who knows what we the student body could be missing out because of this one student’s violence. And this point would not have been missed if the harassing student could see how much more could be taken from his time in class had he been disposed to answering his own questions beyond the classroom. The teacher should not fold for anything less than the standard of directions in the classroom, especially when the attacker can realize the benefits of paid for directions and his/her capacity to answer his/her own question. As an institutionalized class there are rules to be had, and as an institution of education I am sure there is a requirement of competency in the subject in question that would prevent a waste of that institutions resources and consumer base, and so one (the student) needs to ask if he/she can feel safe if he/she is being directed wrong, or that his/her time is being wasted. I feel that, after years of experience within this particular institution (of “life” research), this is a trustworthy institution and so trust should be give to its teachers and benefit of the doubt to that teacher’s performances, since probably he is competent enough to teach us substantially.
It is thus commendable that the Doctor had recommended the primary agitator to conduct his own research in terms of Plato’s absence in the Phaedo and what it means concerning the authenticity of his recounting in the dialogue. A premise of this claim for teacher-oriented order is that the teacher has more to give to the students than the students to each other, and in order for the capacity of teacher to fulfill this role his agency must have the effect, for sake of efficiency, of needing to say things once (as in the case of the Highlighter Question) and having the reasoned capacity to maintain this position (as when the teacher told the harassant to meet him in the office if he wished to discuss the matter further beyond the tolerance for moving on).

Negative:
Reading Question packets should have space or prompts for defining the students’ take on topic in question (if the student “buys” the argument or not, and why). Because class time is limited to an hour each lecture there is inherently not enough time for in-depth philosophical discussion (digression included) and so now time outside of class can now be recognized via writing by the question’s demand for extending those lines of thought (even if it be the supposed self-explanatory positions of the student’s beliefs).

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