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I. Course Description: The Basic Goal Some Let me say that I
I've Think
By
So, So, Why Should I Take a Course on “The
Teachings of the
Catholic Church”? Good
question. In fact, it’s probably the
most common question I get asked. Both
Catholics and non-Catholics alike ask it, and usually with the same
degree of
impatience. So why Let me begin
with the Catholics first. Catholics will
ask me: “Why You are now
enrolled in an institution of higher learning. We teach chemistry,
biology,
physics, politics, psychology, philosophy, history, and a lot more. I suggest that if How about
non-Catholics? What reason might there be for them to take a course in
Catholic
theology? Well, first of all, since this
is a Catholic school, it might be nice to know at least something
about
the kind of convictions and principles that animate the education we
offer
here. Indeed, I would suggest that,
whether
one is going to a Catholic university in Houston, a
Asking
a religious or cultural tradition how it answers the fundamental
questions of
life is the way to study any tradition—including your own—without Thus, That, for those
of you who are interested, is precisely what the core
curriculum is for. Well, this One last caveat: I teach this class as a core class in theology, not as catechism or religious instruction. The inspiration for the way I approach this class came from Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio. In this class, we will be asking the fundamental questions of meaning that, according to Pope John Paul II, every person in every walk of life must face. Not everyone teaches this class (“Teachings of the Catholic Church”) the way I do. So (and this is very important) if you don’t want the kind of class you’ve seen laid out here, then you should feel free to transfer to another class, without the fear of prejudice or ill feeling on my part. I understand that different people want different things out of the classes they take, so I will not be offended if you opt for a different approach. So, for example, some people may have come into this class expecting to do a close reading of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I don’t do that. I love the Catechism. Indeed, I want all my students to have a lively understanding of and appreciation for what the Catholic Church (and therefore the Catechism) teaches. But my approach is a bit more “indirect”: it does not involve having the students read each section of the Catechism in turn and then testing them on the whole at the end. We have other faculty members at St. Thomas who do take that approach. So, if what you want is “all catechism, all the time,” you can find it. Or if what you want is a class in which you won’t be asked any of the fundamental questions, you can find that too. But not here. I’ve been as honest as I can be about the nature of this class right up front, so that students will have the time they need to make changes if they so choose. Please be assured I wish you well no matter which path you choose. More
Specific Goals of the Course and Basic Outline: I hope some of the goals of the course are clear already. We are striving for a more thorough and more profound understanding of some of the basic tenets of the Christian-Catholic faith. If you look at the course web site, you’ll see that the course involves five major sections of roughly equal duration (somewhere between 5 to 7 class periods). Those major sections are, in order: 1. Theology and the Fundamental Questions. 2. Faith: What Does it Mean to Say “I Believe”? 3. Belief in One God, Creator of Heaven and Earth 4. To Be or Not to Be: Evil, Sin, and Death 5. Reflections on the Basic Components of the Apostle’s Creed One way of doing an introductory theology class is to try to introduce students to a little bit of everything: to cover, as it were, the entire content of the Catechism in one class. You’ll notice I haven’t chosen that approach. Instead, we’ll be doing a more in-depth analysis of a select group of major issues—faith, creation, and evil—before moving on to our reflections on the basic components of the Apostle’s Creed. This approach leaves a lot undone. My hope, however, is that what we do cover, we’ll do well. As mentioned above, the approach I take to the study of any religious or philosophical tradition is to try to appreciate it as a critical response to the fundamental questions of life: Who am I? Where am I from? Where am I going? What constitutes human happiness, and what can we say about human happiness in the face of suffering and death? We want to keep asking ourselves those questions as the semester progresses, as well as several others. We want to keep asking ourselves, What does this religious or philosophical tradition have to say about: A) The nature of the human person? B) The human person’s relationship to others? C) The human person’s relationship to the World, the Environment, and the Cosmos as a whole? D) The human person’s relationship to the Transcendent or to God? I will keep stressing throughout the semester that such questions are not merely abstract considerations. They will often give shape to the way we choose to live our lives. In order to set into stark contrast the kind of existential choice that is at stake in the way one answers such questions, we will begin with a consideration of two parallel, but very different, responses to the challenge of evil, both of which occurred during the Second World War. The first involves the choice made by the men of a German Reserve Police Battalion to obey their orders to kill 1500 women and children in a little town in Poland. (Warning: The story is not for the faint of heart.) The second involves the choice made by a group of French villagers to hide thousands of Jewish refugees from deportation by the own government to German concentration camps. We will want to keep these two stories in the forefront of our minds as we proceed throughout the semester. The goal is to see whether our semester’s reflections can help throw light on the nature of the fundamental choices involved, not only in the lives of these people from the past, but in our own. Many students seem to think that the main goal of college is to “get a degree.” While this is not entirely untrue, it is not entirely correct either. College degrees are supposed to be an indication that the person so honored has achieved a level of excellence in the use of certain basic skills. The tragedy is that we can easily mistake the real goal—facility in the use of basic skills—for the symbolic goal: “getting a degree.” Some students seem to think that “getting a degree” will be enough and will suffice to “get them a job.” It will not. And even if you can fool people into giving you an entry-level job, you will not rise about that entry-level position, if you cannot read analytically, write clearly, think critically, and reflect meaningfully on your own progress. For a time I taught at a school vastly more expensive than this one and was often scandalized at the degree to which students, after the expenditure of thousands and thousands of dollars, had been left with relatively low skill-levels in basic reading, writing, and critical thinking. The system had cheated them, yes, but unfortunately, they had often conspired in their own self-defrauding. You may of course do what you wish, but for my part, I am resolved to do what I can not to allow students to defraud themselves out of thousands of dollars of tuition money and not get a real education in the basic skills they need to succeed. Thus, please take note that one of the underlying goals of this course is to help students develop their skill-levels in several basic areas: A) Reading analytically: There is, as I mention below, lots of reading for this class. There are also a lot of questions to guide your reading. The questions to guide your reading are to help you develop the habit of reading analytically. B) Writing clear expository prose: There are several different kinds of writing we will be doing in this class, from double-entry journals to summarizing book-length arguments. You will also spend the semester preparing to write a five-page reflection paper. As you will see from the nature of the assignment, on-line sources will not help you in the slightest. You will have to produce your own written prose. You will also have a chance to revise a draft of your paper before you turn it in. My advice is to take advantage of this opportunity. Studies repeatedly show that success in writing comes from re-writing. No one writes a good first draft. Great writers write and re-write and re-write again. C) Thinking critically: One of the things you should know about this course and in particular about the way I grade essays is that I look for a student’s ability to recognize and dissect arguments; to understand how conclusions were arrived at; and to notice the connections between various texts. As you are working your way through the questions to guide your reading, I will often ask you to think about the reading in light of something else we read earlier in the semester. A (Relatively) Short
Digression on Critical Thinking: In 1956, University of Chicago educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom published his famous classification of levels of intellectual behavior important for learning. In that study, Bloom identified six levels in the cognitive domain. (He did a subsequent study on the “affective domain” — that is to say, the domain related to the passions and emotions, which are equally important for learning, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment.) The six levels in what is often referred to as “Bloom’s Taxonomy” are these (for our purposes, I’ve turned his nouns into verbs): 1. Remembering: To find or remember information 2. Understanding: Explaining ideas or concepts 3. Applying: Using information in a new way or new situation 4. Analyzing: Distinguishing between the different parts and seeing the connections between the parts and the whole. 5. Synthesizing: Building a structure or pattern from diverse elements; putting parts from diverse sources together to form a new whole. 6. Evaluating: Justifying a stand or a decision; making judgments about the value of ideas or materials.
1. Remembering: define, duplicate, label, list, memorize, name, order, recognize, relate, recall, repeat, reproduce, or state basic information such as who, what, when, where, or how. 2. Understanding: classify, discuss, explain, express, identify, indicate, locate, recognize, report, restate, review, select, “describe in your own words.” 3. Applying: apply, choose, demonstrate, dramatize, employ, illustrate, interpret, operate, practice, sketch, solve, or use. 4. Analyzing: analyze, appraise, calculate, categorize, compare, contrast, criticize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, examine, or “test this assumption.” “What are the parts or features of...?” “Classify...according to....” “Outline/diagram the following.” “How does...compare/contrast with...? “What evidence can you list for...?” 5. Synthesizing: arrange, assemble, collect, compose, construct, develop, formulate, manage, organize, plan, prepare, propose, set up, create, design, or write. 6. Evaluating: appraise, argue, assess, compare, defend, estimate, judge, predict, rate, select, support, value, or evaluate. “Do you agree or disagree?” “What is the most important?” “How would you decide about...? “What criteria would you use to assess...? Now we needn’t linger over whether Prof. Bloom’s specific taxonomy is entirely adequate (it’s not, especially since the affective dimension is missing) or over whether there is a cognitive hierarchy of the sort he envisions, with remembering at the bottom and evaluating at the top. Clearly you can’t apply, analyze, or evaluate information if you can’t remember, recognize, or locate it. And to the argument over whether “creating” is really a more sophisticated cognitive act than, say, “evaluating,” I can only say: maybe, maybe not. But let’s put all those questions aside for the time being. What is perhaps more revealing is the fact that, in his survey of American schools, Bloom found that over 95% of the test questions students encountered required them to think only at the level of the recall of information. Now you’ll find that I’m a big fan of memory as a kind of sine qua non of education, but even I think we should be mixing things up a bit and getting students to think in ways they are not yet accustomed to. Here’s the problem with that proposal: it hurts your head. Thinking in new ways is difficult. It requires developing new synapses in your brain. And while the results can be extraordinary, the process can be excruciating. But there’s no way around it. You have to start taking those first faltering steps (and probably fall more often than you’d care to imagine) if you’re ever going to learn to walk and then to run. It’s do-able alright: You can learn to read and write and think well. But no one ever said it was going to be easy. Because this is
an introductory course, many of the questions I ask you will be at the
level of
remembering or understanding. I’ll want you
to recall information, state arguments, and “describe in your own
words.” These are not unimportant skills. But take special notice when I ask you to
analyze or compare or evaluate. Those
are often more difficult tasks for students because they aren’t often
asked to
do those sorts of things. It might be a
much more pleasant class for you if I didn’t ask you to do engage in
that sort
of thinking. But it wouldn’t be better
for your development as an educated person. An Important Note on
“Knowing Yourself” and “Metacognition”:
Recognizing the best way for you to read and the best way for you to study should be a crucial part of your education at UST. Do you do better in short bursts? Or better to read all at once? Do you study better in the library? Or, like me, in coffee shops? Does music help you concentrate? Or does it distract you? Only you can answer those questions. Too many students have concluded that they’re “just not good” at something, or that they “just don’t like to read,” for example, simply because they’ve been trying to force themselves to do it in a way totally at odds with the way their mind works. The common goal is to master the information and to master the basic skills. Whether you master the information and those basic skills to the sound of Mozart or Metallica is entirely up to you. The “best way to learn” is the way that’s best for you. One way that I will attempt to help you test your own metacognitive abilities is by giving you what is called a “knowledge survey.” That’s not a very good name; it should probably be called a “metacognitive survery.” But either way, the point of the survey (it’s not an exam) is to gauge how well you think you are prepared for an exam. On the “knowledge survey,” you will not be answering the question per se. You will merely be indicating whether you think you are well prepared, moderately prepared, or not prepared at all to answer a question in a certain subject area. So, for example, I might ask: “Do you think you are (A) well prepared, (B) moderately prepared, or (C) not prepared at all to answer to answer a question on what it means to say that Christ is “fully God and fully man.” Whether you actually are prepared or not will be decided by the exam, which will come later. But it will be important if you find that you repeatedly think you know something and are prepared for an exam, and subsequently find that you are not. It is also important if you think you have understood a text that you’ve read, but find out you really haven’t. When you realize these things, it can be extremely valuable, because then you can find better ways to read, study, and prepare for exams. What you must never do is to assume: “Oh, I just can’t do that sort of stuff.” That’s just defeatist crap. If people with no legs can run marathons and people who are blind can read books, then you can learn the basic skills you need to learn to succeed in the modern economy. Bottom line: Take the “knowledge survey” seriously when it comes. And take the reading quizzes seriously if and when I give them. They will offer you valuable information about yourself. II. Procedures and Requirements: Reading and
Reflection: The means to our goal of an increased "understanding of faith" will involve both reading and reflection. 2. Your reflection on the readings and the course material will be facilitated by questions which are posted on the course web site. Of these, there are two types: (a) "Reading
Questions," which are linked
to each of the readings listed on the web site; and (b) "Review Questions"
(listed separately),
which cover the lecture material not covered in the readings. At times, there will be some overlap between these two, but not always. You are not required to write out the answers to these questions and turn them in, but you should be forewarned that the quizzes and exams are taken largely from these questions. A
Note on the Web Site for the Course: As I just mentioned, the web site for this course can be found at the following web address: http://t4.stthom.edu/users/smith/teachings. (If you’re reading this on-line, you’ve already found it. There will also be a Blackboard site for this course, but most of what you will need for the course can be found on this generally accessible web site.) Instead of using dates for each class, I’ve used numbers. There are roughly 35 class periods available in the semester, and so you’ll find 35 numbered sections on the course web site. Thus, if you miss a class and want to know what the assignment is for the next class, just read the assigned readings under the next number. Please note that I don’t respond to e-mails that ask: “What is the reading assignment for the next class?” Almost no one does. Here’s a word to the wise: A good way to make it seem as though you’re still stuck in a high school mentality and haven’t yet decided to take responsibility for your own education is to e-mail this question to any of your college professors. Similarly, if you get a job somewhere when you’re finished with school, it’s also not a good idea to e-mail your boss and ask: “What did you assign me to do for tomorrow?” You may not think that such an e-mail indicates a lack of respect (both for the job and for the boss), but trust me, it does. For each numbered section on the course web site, you will find the readings assigned for that day, along with a few brief “Texts for Reflection” (usually from the Bible) and some “Questions for Consideration.” The “Questions for Consideration” are the big questions—the big fundamental questions—that I want you to be thinking about while you’re doing the reading and exercises for that class period. When you click on the links for each of the individual readings, you’ll find a series of “Questions to Guide Your Reading” for that particular reading. As I mentioned above, you will not be required to write out the answers to all of these questions and turn them in. They are there, as the title suggests, to “guide your reading.” Oftentimes when reading, students will ask themselves: “What does the professor want me to get out of this reading? What are the sorts of things he might test me on?” Well, you will know the answer to those questions if you read with the “Questions to Guide Your Reading” by your side. My suggestion is that you at least make a note in your reading next to the sections that correspond to the questions in the “Questions to Guide Your Reading.” That will make studying for your exams much easier and less time consuming. A Special Note on the Amount of Reading Required for this Course: There will be plenty of reading, so please be prepared to do it. This is a college-level course, therefore it is entirely appropriate for me to assign you upwards of 40 to 50 pages of reading between class periods. That is not a lot. You simply have to pace yourself. If you can read 20 pages per hour (with good understanding and retention), then you will need two hours or so to do the reading. If you read much more slowly, then you need longer. Budget your time accordingly. Yes, I know you have other classes. They should be assigning you plenty of reading as well. For every class you take at this University, you should expect to put in between two to three hours of work for every hour you are in class. That’s a standard college work load at good colleges across the country. (Note that I said at “good” colleges, so please don’t tell me how your friends at Party U. spend half the time studying you do and the rest of the time drinking with their buddies.) I always read the comments students make on their evaluations at the end of the semester, and I take them all very seriously, except for this one: “Too much reading!” Here’s a hint: No, there’s not. You have asked us to teach you and prepare you to do first-rate work in business or professional school. And that is what I intend to do. I know how much reading you should be able to do, especially in the current information age. If you’re not interested in that sort of formation, then you want another class, probably another school. You need to be building muscles for excellence as opposed to getting yourself accustomed to mediocrity. In any course you take at this University, even if you are not particularly interested in the subject matter of the course, you should still take it as an occasion to develop the habit of excellence rather than the habit of mediocrity. Our successful students always—and I mean this very sincerely—they always thank us for having challenged them and, in particular, for having forced them to read and write more than they thought possible. In any worthwhile endeavor, the joy and freedom that comes with attaining excellence demands work and discipline on the front end. And sometimes that work and discipline on the front end can be really annoying. “Learning” means opening up new synapse patterns in your brain. So if you’re head doesn’t hurt, you’re probably not learning anything new. You’re just repeating old patterns. If you went to a coach to train to become an Olympic-caliber athlete, and he told you it wouldn’t take much work or discipline, you’d know he was a scam artist. Why people go to colleges and universities and pay them thousands of dollars in order to be made into highly employable thinkers, and then sleep-walk through their classes as though excellence didn’t take much work or discipline, is simply beyond me. Quizzes and
Exams: In order to help encourage good analytical reading, I will ask a group of randomly-selected students (determined by a random selection from a thoroughly shuffled deck of playing cards) at the beginning of each period to comment on several of the reading questions for the material assigned for that day. A good answer can earn you up to 3 points. A bad or non-existent answer will earn 0 points. These points will help determine your class participation grade at the end of the semester. You will also be
asked to demonstrate your knowledge of the course material on a
mid-term and a
final exam. Exams will be made up mostly
of essay questions taken from the Reading and Review Questions, along
with a
few fill-in-the-blank questions. If you
are keeping up with the On
the Semester-Long Deep-Learning Exercise: Throughout the course of the semester, students will be asked to engage in an extended series of reflections on the nature of suffering. Please note that the purpose of the assignment is not to cause undue suffering, although it may; that is really up to the student. Rather the goal of the assignment is to prompt reflection on suffering, and indeed not, in the first place, one’s own suffering. The poet T. S. Eliot has written that, in our own experiences of suffering, the problem is often “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” We often appreciate better “the agony of others, nearly experienced,” says Eliot, than our own. For our own past is covered by the currents of action, But the torment of others remains an experience Unqualified, unworn by subsequent attrition. People change, and smile: but the agony abides. So, you are not going to be asked to “share” some horrible event that scarred you deeply in your dark past. That is for your psychologist, analyst, or pastor. But you will be asked to ask an older person of your acquaintance to talk to you about his or her attitude toward suffering. There will be multiple parts to this assignment, and they will not be due all at once. For more details, please see the sheet entitled “Suffering and the Possibility of Human Fulfillment.” The total for all the different parts of this assignment will add up to 20% of the student’s final grade. III. Grading: Please note that your final grade will be calculated according to the following formula: Mid-Term
Exam: 35% Final
Exam: 40 % Semester-Long
Project: 20 % Class
Participation: 5 % Please note as well that I assign letter grades based upon the following standard scale: A 93-100 A- 90-92 B+ 88-89 B 83-87 B- 80-82 C+ 78-79 C 73-77 C- 70-72 D+ 68-69 D 63-67 D- 60-62 F Anything below 60 IV. My Policy on Attendance: I will take attendance daily at the beginning of each class. If you are late, it is your responsibility to see me after class to make sure you are marked present (but late). If you haven’t informed me of your presence, then you didn’t attend. Please be forewarned that more than three absences will result in a decrease of one‑third of a letter grade. Further absences will result in further proportionate decreases. After six absences, you will be excused from further attendance in an official way by the University Registrar. Please also take note that I make no distinction between “excused” and “un‑excused” absences. You may excuse yourself for whatever reason you deem important enough to miss class. I realize that there are certainly times when attending class is not the most important thing in your life. On the other hand, since you are enrolled, attending class is not unimportant if you are to get the educational benefit for which you are paying. Three absences, therefore, seems about right. On the other hand, any student who achieves a semester-long record of perfect, on-time attendance will receive two extra points on his or her final total. (So, for example, if your final total is a 91, this little bonus could mean the difference between getting an A- and an A.) V. Required There are five books required for this course, four of which are available for purchase at the University Bookstore. They are: * Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), ‘In the Beginning...': A Catholic Understanding of the Story of the Creation and the Fall (Eerdmans). * C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (Harper). * David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans) * The Book of Job, tr. Stephen Mitchell (Harper) In addition to reading assignments from these four books, by far the largest share of the readings you will be assigned will be found in a large spiral-bound Reader full of shorter articles that students will need to purchase at Reprint copy shop. Their address is 2035 SW Freeway @ Shepherd. Their phone number is 713-522-9299. For directions, Google “reprint inc.” VI. Some Important Comments Concerning Your Participation in the Class: On Class Etiquette: It should go without saying (but let me say it anyway) that respect for your fellow students in the class demands the following:
On Lecture and Discussion: While it is this instructor's view that learning should be an active process on the part of the students, he does not, unfortunately, determine class size. Large classes make class discussion nearly impossible because too few students get to take part in the discussion and the others tend to let their brains turn off having concluded from past experience that, “well, I know this won’t be on the test.” In short, we're screwed. But maybe not entirely. Students will notice when they enter the room that they have been assigned seats around tables in small groups of four. We will be using these small groups to do short assignments throughout the semester. I have assigned you to a group instead of allowing you to pick your own for several reasons. First, most people don’t know others in the class, and trying to pick a group would be awkward. Second, studies show repeatedly that when people are allowed to pick their own groups, they generally choose people who seem most like themselves. You need to learn to work with people who are very much unlike you. So I’m sticking you at a table with people with whom you probably have very little in common and asking you to learn to cooperate for your own good and for the good of the group. This plan will probably put you outside your comfort zone. But so be it. Note, moreover, that you can be “fired” from your small group if the rest of the members feel that you are nothing but a drag on the group. So you need to carry your own weight. If all you’re doing is coming into the group in order to get from the others but have nothing to give, then you’re likely to be fired. I have a friend (a pretty touch-minded guy) who teaches business classes at another university who also makes use of small groups of this sort. In his classes, if you get “fired” from your group and can’t get another group to “hire” you, then you fail the course. His rationale is that, in business, if you get fired and can’t get re-hired, that’s sort of the ultimate F. If you get “fired,” I’m not going to give you an automatic F. But you may have to do every subsequent assignment on your own when you could have shared the work with others. By the same token, since this is a rather large class, I will also have to do a lot of lecturing. Students should be prepared, therefore, to listen and take good notes. (Depending upon others in your group to take notes for you is a good way to get fired.) We can’t have good discussions if the students don’t know anything about the subject area. So lecture will serve as a foundation. Small group work will build on that foundation. Please understand that I am always open to earnest and serious questions during my lectures. One caveat, however: This is a big class, and we do have to keep things moving along, so I can't necessarily call on everyone every time. My experience from past classes suggests that while students often find class discussions interesting, they also find them a bit frustrating. There is simply no way of discussing important issues thoroughly in the kind of time we spend in class. My conviction is that education either goes on outside of the classroom, or it does not go on at all. What discussion in the classroom can do (at its best) is merely pique your interest – “wet your appetite,” as it were. The real conversations must take place after you leave the classroom: with your friends and family, late at night in coffee shops or bars, over a glass of red wine, good beer, or strong, dark coffee. Here the time is too short and the surroundings are too sterile for real philosophy to take place. But we can at least begin the conversation. Please be aware that I will often ask questions at random during my lectures about the reading material assigned for that day’s class. (Actually, the selection will be done by the shuffling of a deck of cards; more on that in time.) The goal of this exercise is to encourage students to begin to put their thoughts into words. Students should be able to demonstrate at least some rudimentary knowledge of the text, or at least some ability to think about the questions involved. If it is clear to everyone that you have not done the reading at all, then don't be surprised if this fact ends up being reflected in your final grade. (I make little notes on my attendance sheet: 0 for a bad answer; 1 for a mediocre answer; 2 for a good answer. If and when I call on you, this is your chance to chalk up some points.) The good news, therefore, is this: Regular and prompt attendance, coupled with a good faith effort to understand the text, can do wonders for your grade. On the Modus Operandi of the Instructor: Please note that you are responsible for all the reading material, even though we will not necessarily have time to cover it all in class. We will only cover highlights and the more difficult sections in class. Class lecture and discussion are merely parts of the process by which you educate yourself. The goal of a liberal arts education is to teach you how to teach yourself. You need to learn how to learn. There is no way we can teach you everything you need to know in four years. There is no way we can cover all the relevant points about the kind of important questions we will be covering in fifty or sixty minutes. That is the work of a lifetime. These four years are meant to prepare you for a lifetime of education. The end of the class period is when the real learning begins. Note also that there are a number of different ways of running a class. One way would be for the professor to step back and merely facilitate a discussion between students. This class is too big for that. Another way would be for the professor to lecture in an orderly, point-by-point fashion, using PowerPoint slides or overhead projections. Some professors come into a class with five points to make, lay them out in order and are done. This method works with material for which you don’t need to have much context in order to “get” the points the speaker wants to make. That makes this method appropriate for communicating discrete bits of information, but not as good, in my view, for areas that require thinking. Ideas do not happen in isolation; they arise in a context, and their full truth can only be appreciated by understanding them within that context. The process of acquiring this context may feel at times as though we’re wandering the circles around the center of a labyrinth. We eventually reach the center, but the process might make you wonder, “If our destination was here, why did we walk around in all those circles? Why didn’t we just walk in a straight line and get to the point?” Because with me, the journey is often as important as the destination. I want students to see the center from a number of different angles, perspectives and points-of-view. I want them to begin to see the connections between the ideas. And I want them to begin to enter into a conversation: a conversation not just with me or with the other students in the class, but with a number of the greatest thinkers of the past and present: a conversation of interconnected ideas that is meant to extend beyond the classroom and into their everyday lives. There is something else as well. Often in the process of learning, it is good to become comfortable with being uncomfortable; with not knowing exactly where you’re going for a while; with struggling through the twists and turns in order to find your way, trusting that if you take the coaching and do the work, the whole picture will eventually become clear, in fact much clearer than if you had just walked from Point A to Point B and said to yourself, “There, now that’s done.” There are many truths that require something more than a five-point summary or that can’t be captured in a sound-bite. Most things worth knowing must be approached as you would approach a great work of art. You don’t just glance at it the way you glance at a stop sign. Great works of art require time: time to walk around them, to look at them from various angles, to mull them over, and sometimes just to sit and be in their presence, so that their truth and beauty can overflow into you. VII. Contacting Me:
My
office phone number is (713) 942-5059, and my e-mail address is
Please feel free to use either. I must, however, warn you of the
following. After literally dozens of
hours playing phone tag with people, I no longer return phone calls. And because like most people who have an
e-mail account in I’m sorry about this, but information overload has simply resulted in the breakdown of the electronic communications systems at many businesses. There are executives in major corporations who send automatic replies to each and every e-mail message that reads: “If you haven’t heard from me by the end of the day today, you will have to try again, because I simply delete all untouched e-mail messages at the end of each business day.” Experts estimate that businesses are losing as much as two hours of productive work per person per day while their employees are checking e-mail. What does one do when the technology fails? Revert back to one of the classic, tried-and-true methods of the past: namely, walk over and actually talk to the person. It’s not as though we live on separate continents. We are within a two- or three-block radius of one another nearly every day. And you will be seeing me in class at this time every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It’s not as though I am unavailable, simply because you can’t always get in touch with me instantly with the touch of a button. So, you may need to plan ahead. If you need to get in touch with me, the best way is to make an appointment after class, or come see me either in my office or in Dirk’s Coffee Shop (at the corner of Montrose and Branard) during my regular office hours. And please, please, don’t get personally offended if I don’t respond immediately to your e-mail message. It may be a technical glitch (my system has on numerous occasions filtered out student e-mails), or I may just be way behind in checking e-mail. Either way, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to keep up with all the e-mail traffic. So, for example, at different points in the semester, I may have to declare a moratorium on e-mail in order to be able to finish grading student papers or exams. VIII. Finally: Finally, please be assured I want you to do well in this course, and I will do whatever I can to see to it that you get the grade to which you aspire. But for now, don’t forget to do the following as soon as possible: * Check the course web site at: http://t4.stthom.edu/users/smith/teachings * Be sure you can access the course Blackboard site. * Order your Reader from Reprint, Inc. * Read the material in your packet and prepare for Wednesday’s class. Most
of
all, a very warm welcome to you all! |