It could be said that philosophy is about rational, systematic thought; intellectual creativity; defining our existence; resolving ethical and political challenges; etc. However it is defined, it essentially boil down to something that can benefit each individual, both in terms of contributing to his happiness and in terms of contributing to the well-being of the organizations he holds a place within. This is, I expect, the reason why, in Quebec, college (CEGEP) students are expected to take three philosophy as a perquisite for their diploma.

However, this leads to certain complications. How can we teach philosophy to students who have no genuine interest in the matter? Because these courses are mandatory, the reality of things is that many students attend them solely for their degree and have no passion for what is thought in the classroom; they merely want to get it over with. This is something that is obviously taken into account, as the courses seem designed to introduce students to certain concepts, rather than to elaborate upon them. Still, we do not know how to best teach anything to students, let alone something as subtle as the art of reason.

Descriptive or participatory?

Should we offer them the descriptive approach, by simply attempting to describe the opinions of certain philosophers and ensuring that a variety of opinions is introduced to students? This seems to be an effective way to offer students valuable information, but then, where does “philosophy” come in? Another approach, which I would call participatory, would better differentiate philosophy courses from other courses: it would consist of forcing students to exploit the philosophers within themselves, by only using raw information for the sake of creating a platform for students to consider philosophical problems, to test and strenthen their minds. This could be measured by looking at how well they formulate ideas, both in written and oral form, both spontaneously (in class discussions and essays) and with deadlines (prepared orals and lengthy essays). Teachers could explain where students may go wrong in their reasoning, such as by gradually introducing them to logical fallacies, to arguments that go deeper than their own (without trying to intimidate them) and so forth. The teacher would have to be knowledgeable with a variety of subjects so as to allow and encourage students to explore the different facets of philosophy so that they find the one that best suits them. The subject itself would mostly be a medium for them to practice on and it should change regularly, at least in the first course. After the first course, it would be possible to go with specialized courses such as those that currently exist in our colleges, such as one that is focused on ethics, or another on political philosophy etc. What I can say is that cramming student’s heads with the oversimplified — and to students, boring — ideas of dead men seems somewhat pointless if the goal is to instill students with wisdom.

In Quebec’s colleges, there seems to be a mix of both approaches, though the focus is clearly on the descriptive approach. There are many options in terms of which courses students can take, but, in my experience and from what I can tell based on the experiences of others, it seems that students rarely get much out of the course. Some do become passionate about what they learned and decide to dig further into the matter, but even then, it’s mostly about out-of-school work; in class, students get such a simplified account of the philosophical concepts that it all seems rather pointless. Even if they do master the course material, the fragments that they learn seem irrelevant and eventually slip out of their mind. Often, what they get out of the classes is what has more to do with mental exercise than specific information. So, if the information being presented in class — and often the subject of tests — seems rather useless in the context of a mandatory, basic philosophy class, then why not focus on a more involved approach?

Proselytizing

This is part of the problem. Another, that can concern both the descriptive and participatory approaches, is how the focus sometimes lays on the teacher, rather than the material or the students. This will vary from course to course, teacher to teacher, but it seems to be particularly problematic in philosophy courses. It is easy to be objective when speaking of science. There are controversies in science (including, of course, both the natural and social sciences), but it seems that the teachers have a better handle on objectivity. They admit that everything is liable for change and they point out the issues that are being debated as well as the different schools of thought behind these arguments. In my social sciences classes, only the most radical supporters of particular theories could find something to complain about. This isn’t because the sciences don’t touch controversial material, but because they are more systematic in their approach. Sociology and psychology tend to take a look at things directly related to political and ethical issues that are hotly debated; but, while a psychology teacher might note that a study shows that mothers who get an abortion suffer from psychological trauma, a philosophy teacher might be more tempted to talk in more controversial terms. Sometimes, they even use their classroom as a platform for their personal opinions to be heard.

I used to be somewhat optimistic in terms of teachers being able to restrain themselves in this respect. The situation never seemed ideal, but it wasn’t a big deal. But now I have a teacher that seems unable to determine when it is appropriate to offer his personal opinions and when he is supposed to talk about other people’s opinions objectively. The course is entitled “Introduction to Ideologies” and seems chiefly concerned with looking at the ideas of liberalism, conservatism, socialism and fascism. What I expected from this course were descriptions of these different ideologies based on the point of view of the original thinkers and then, perhaps, of modern thinkers. So, we would look at Adam Smith based on The Wealth of Nations, then, if we have the time, the point of view of new-deal liberalism, neoclassical liberalism as well as socialism. The same could be done for the other broad ideologies approached within the course.

Yet, this is not how things were done. When looking at Adam Smith, certain basic ideas were thrown around, such as that of the invisible hand and how markets organically organize themselves as they should be, but they were quickly attacked by the teacher. The invisible hand, he said, was not invisible. Markets, he said, are not natural, “they are not swamps”, he insisted. He introduced the class to some of Smith’s concepts, but always, always felt the need to inject his personal (and passionate) opinion on the matter. He then went further on, complaining about how Canadian businessmen invested their money outside of Canada  (strangely, he seemed to believe that when you invest money in Brazil you don’t create jobs, yet when you invest money in Canada you create jobs). He complained about how the Canadian government did not actively try to create new business enterprises (something he said we needed to do because we do not have the artisan base that Europe and the United States has; a strange idea, to say the least) and so forth. He complained about “libertarian rednecks”. He kept going on and on about his opinions and the students actually learned very little about Adam Smith, except some key terms and that Smith’s ideas were completely wrong.

Is Stephen Harper a neoconservative? I do not know, but that’s what the teacher claimed (even though he said that we should not label people in ways which they did not label themselves). In fact, the teacher has made negative remarks on Stephen Harper in just about every course. Even more annoying is how outlandish these remarks are and how he relies on statements such as “some would say that our Prime Minister [...]“, “there are those who believe [...]” etc. For example, I recall him linking, with the use of such weasel words, neoconservatism with a desire to convert Muslims to Christianity (and thus students linked Harper with converting Muslims to Christianity). I have no love for the neocon movement, but these are severe claims that he has proved himself unable to support. The neoconservative movement has a very clear history:  the man who first embraced the label, Irving Kristol, also designed the ideology. Ironically, he was Jewish (as neocons disproportionately are), so it seems bizarre to claim that neoconservatives want to convert Muslims to Christianity. When I told this to the teacher, he talked about how some people believe in the special relationship of “Judeo-Christianity” (which seemed sufficient to claim that a Jew could want to convert a Muslim to Christianity). OK, so then I asked him to explain the presence of a Muslim, the previous US Ambassador to the United Nations, Afghanistan and Iraq, Zalmay Khalizad, in the neoconservative Project for the New American Century that was founded by William Kristol, Irving Kristol’s son. He then noted that he had specified that “some” and not “all” neoconservatives had such a goal in mind. OK, so who has made such claims? He said that I had to read between the lines. Of course. With that level of scrutiny, he could claim that Walt Disney wanted all of us to become zoophiles: “Just read between the lines!”.

Now, I should note that if he had acted as a right-winger with a grudge against Marx and our leftist party, the New Democratic Party (NDP), I would have been equally bothered. It’s just inappropriate for a teacher to go on and on about his personal opinions in a course about political philosophy; the teacher’s job is not to proselytize, but to educate. The most worrisome thing is that I asked this teacher, after growing tired of listening to him abuse his authority, if we would be graded on our knowledge of Adam Smith’s views, or the teacher’s. After a slight pause, he responded that it would probably be a mix.

So, though mandatory courses in philosophy have some merit, it seems important to consider the overall goal of such courses: do we want students to memorize certain information and hope that this inspires them to learn more about the subjects, or do we want to strengthen student’s critical-thinking skills and improve their oral and written argumentative skill, hoping that this will inspire them to start looking for information for their minds to toy with?

It is also important that the schools ensure that the classrooms are not used by teachers to vehicle their personal opinions and values. Though I understand the temptation to do this in some cases, it is inappropriate for teachers to use their authority to preach in favour of ideas that are, at the very least, up for debate. They can present these ideas along with opposite ideas and the students, but when teachers go beyond this and start teaching their own opinions, an undue influence is being exerted and this makes it difficult for students who either disagree with the conclusions or/and the form of the arguments, since they can only absorb and not reply. It is possible to argue with teachers, but, due to the power dynamic, this comes with certain problems. The most serious of these is how it may lead to lower grades. Though some teachers might disagree that grading is subjective, it has been demonstrated that teachers are at risk of evaluative biases.

It’s not enough for a teacher to tell students to be critical of his opinions, or to introduce opinions that disagree with his own; there is simply no reason why the teacher should spent any significant amount of time telling students what he thinks is right when there are already published perspectives that can be used to introduce the same information in a more objective manner. It is acceptable for teachers to let their opinions slip out, but whether the teacher thinks that the government should never interfere in the economy or that every single business in the country should belong to the government should not have an influence on how the class is taught, on what students believe to be “true”.

-Dussault

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