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PART 1
A PERSONAL NOTE ABOUT TEACHING
PHILOSOPHY
When I decided that I wanted to be an undergraduate
philosophy teacher, most of my graduate school professors
and fellow students were perplexed. To many of them,
undergraduate teaching was a chore that virtually anyone
could perform. The assumption seemed to be (and still is, in
too many places) that anyone who knew the subject matter
could teach it. Consequently, I was not directly taught about
teaching philosophy. I learned a bit from being a teaching
assistant, but I certainly was not taught about things like
setting attendance requirements that actually help students
learn, or how to write tests or handle disruptions, and other
under-the-radar or too-obvious-to-mention matters that, of
course, were not obvious to me. And why should they have
been? My experiences as a student may have given me some
notions about good and bad teaching practices, but only as
they pertained to students, and not to all students only
students of my ilk. I was understandably naïve about the
much more complex considerations teachers face.
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At even the most selective schools, just about every
philosophy teacher encounters eager, highly motivated
students, slightly interested students, uninterested students,
dysfunctional students, and possibly even some hostile
THE TEACHER
1. Relax: Your students want you to succeed. You will
discover that most students want you to be a good teacher,
even if they don t particularly like philosophy. Students are
2. Relax: No matter what you do, some students will not
like you. Treat it as a law of the teaching universe. No matter
3. Relax: No matter how hard you try, you will not like
4. Relax: No matter what you do (almost), some students
will think you are a great teacher. In all my years of teaching,
5. Learn from your own best teachers. Think back to your
favorite undergraduate teachers. If they re like my favorites,
they were real characters. When I listen to people praise
teachers from years ago, I notice that they almost always
remember a combination of professional and personal
6. Be yourself without being the focus of the class. We ve
all probably suffered two extremes: the impersonal, cold-fish
professor whose love of the subject gets in the way of being a
7. Treat your captive audience as a sacred trust. Avoid
using the classroom as a bully pulpit. Your values will
become clear in the normal course of conducting class.
8. Don t hide your basic values. Although this may seem to
conflict with tip 7, it is really an extension of tip 6. Students
are interested in what you think. They (and you) can learn a
9. Continually reassure students by practice and word that
they are not being graded according to what they think of
your fundamental values about crucial issues. Holding
10. Don t hide your fallibility. Admit mistakes. Confess
when you don t know the answer and promise to look it up
11. Be spontaneous. One of the best lessons you can share
with students is the value of the living present. Sometimes a
class gets stale. You ve been on a topic too long or have only
12. Expect respect and require it. Don t apologize for your
knowledge or institutional authority. Your students are not
13. Don t patronize students by trying to make everything
interesting to everyone. If a section is boring, explain why
it s important as part of the class but admit that it s not easy
or interesting or whatever. This frees you of the burden of
14. Relax: You ll never cover everything you want to (and
thank heaven you don t). Most of our students have had
plenty of chances for superficial, little-bit-of-everything
learning. A philosophy class, even on an introductory level,
15. Feel free to customize your course. The best teaching
16. Enjoy yourself. Remember, students want to like you, and
they probably will. They expect you to enjoy what you teach.
17. Prepare well, then go with the flow. The best way to have
responsive, dynamic classes is to be well prepared. Read well
ahead of your students. Make lecture notes. Flag passages in
the text. Think up examples, discussion questions, and the
18. Never date or flirt with current students. Period. Your
first obligation as a teacher is to your students all of them.
No matter how old, wise, or experienced a student is, he or
she is still less powerful than you are. Merely suggesting a
flirtation is enough to make some students uncomfortable.
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THE COURSE
Undergraduate students enroll in philosophy courses for a
variety of reasons: they have to (it s required); they re
curious (a wonderful reason); the class fits their schedule;
1. Compromise is inevitable. You already know that there is
no such thing as a perfect course. Whether you teach at an
open door community college or highly selective private
2. Spend a great deal of time preparing a course syllabus
and have it ready the first day of class. Students prefer
knowing exactly what is expected of them, how they will be
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3. Treat the written course syllabus as a contract between
you and each student. This avoids bad feelings that can arise
4. Always include a written notice acknowledging that
changes in the syllabus may be necessary and that you
will announce all such changes in a timely fashion. And
then keep your promise. Last-minute changes should be the
5. Be on time and be organized. Students take their cues
from you. If you wander in late, talk off the top of your head,
it.
6. Make all policies and all policy changes public. Avoid
secret arrangements with students. No matter how wise an
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7. Attendance matters. I disagree with the idea that it is
high schoolish to require attendance of college students.
First, at many public colleges, credit for a class is based on the
class meeting a certain number of hours. As a public
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8. A congenial learning environment matters. Your primary
obligation is to the students who are really trying to learn. It is
difficult to learn if people around them are whispering,
talking, passing notes, reading magazines, using calculators,
9. Think of time as life. Don t steal your time or your
10. Stick to the schedule without worshipping it. Students
11. Make and keep reasonable promises. If you say that
12. Make useful comments on written work. Students are
rightly disappointed and angered when essays and papers
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13. Read to the class. Almost everybody enjoys being read to.
Every now and then read a passage from the text or some
14. Take full advantage of Archetypes of Wisdom. Be sure
not to overlook Learning Objectives, For Deeper
15. Take advantage of the supplemental aides that Cengage
Learning provides for adopters of Archetypes of Wisdom.
Various online resources provide primary source material,