Oook writes admiringly of this post from Stephen Downes, so I immediately went to read it. I agree wholeheartedly with 50% of what Stephen has written, and disagree violently with the other half.
In terms of the way people live their lives, it may be true that there’s no point to argumentation. But that’s regrettable, and it’s the fault of people, not of argumentation. That’s another way of saying that argumentation should *not* be pointless.
Polemic may be pointless, in that it merely solidifies convictions on both sides of the debate, and perhaps bullies a few others into taking the speaker’s/writer’s side. But polemic is not the same thing as argumentation.
I fully agree that cognitive apprenticeship is at the heart of real school. But reason, rigorous argumentation, must be there as well. As should hilarity, passion, dogged commitment, and a richly integrative vision.
If all we can do is explain our beliefs to each other, how are we to learn? Or perhaps Stephen has brought the notion of argumentation in through the back door, so to speak, in his notion of a true, honest, and forthright explanation. Does not the very act of communication imply a request that we consider his statement and, if we judge it sound (not just agreeable), agree with it or learn from it? Picking up on Ron’s comment on Stephen’s post, I too hope that my students will not simply say “that’s what Dr. C. believes” but will actually engage with it, argue their own position, and teach me something in response. There have been several occasions in which my students’ arguments about topics of class discussion have caused me to change my mind in some fundamental ways. And of course I seek to change their minds as well, when that’s appropriate, always holding in our class meta-mind the larger principles of openness, fairness, and rigorous analysis.
I understand that by responding to Stephen’s post I have in some respects failed the test, though in writing that I’m being harsher than I feel. I do think, however, that the mind and meta-mind I’m trying to articulate form the paradoxical, vital reality of human interaction.
I’m not sure that either explanation or argumentation really capture the best of the interaction we’d most like to be engaged in. For me, the most difficult task of effective teaching is to establish an environment where both faculty members and students are free to act authentically in the conversations with each other. As Stephen says:
I’m less convinced that the point of learning is for the student to “become the master”. The point of teaching for me is to create a setting where I can share my experience and the meaning I’ve made from that experience in a way that allows students to incorporate the parts that make sense to them–while being perfectly comfortable in discarding the rest.
For me the classroom is less about argumentation or explanation and more about dialogue. I feel least as driven to understand my student’s feelings and beliefs about their own learning as to communicate mine. Whenever possible, I hope to engage my students as partners in a joint exploration in finding shared truth and meaning–not as an audience to be convinced.
I think of teaching as many small pieces, loosely joined.
Being convinced, or convincing someone else, is part of the joint exploration.
Finding shared truth and meaning is vital. But so is learning a discipline–not just a subject, but a rigorous way of thinking, a specific set of habits of mind. Learning those doesn’t mean being bound to them, any more than learning to play the violin means one can never play the flute.
I too believe in dialogue–but I also believe in development, both mine and my students. That’s another way of saying that I do not think that what makes sense to me, or to my students, is static, or that it’s wholly a matter of individual preference. Again, the developmental aspect is crucial here. Part of the reason undergraduates go to college at all is to receive advanced training in what can make sense. None of that is perfect, just as no teacher is perfect, but I have a great concern that students who discard what doesn’t make sense to them and are perfectly comfortable doing so are setting themselves up for a lifetime of intellectual isolation.
How do we come to understand a thing?
A small child understands by putting the thing in his mouth. An artist explores and understands by repeatedly drawing it. A blind person knows a thing by touching it. Others understand best through words. By describing a thing, or wrestling with it, or flipping it around, or juxtaposing it with another thing. We learn by working with an object or idea–by manipulating it–by playing with it. Argumentation is another way to handle the stuff of this world.
We first teach people to recognize and name the object. Then we try to get them to pick it up and do something with it. Eventually we hope that they (and we) will come to do something new, interesting, or revelatory.
We can have a conversation about things; I can show you what I do with these things; I can beat you over the head with things; you can hit me back; you can ignore these things; I can ignore you while I talk about things; we can work with these things together as a way of coming to understand them, ourselves, and each other.
Well, that’s true, and that’s brilliant. You should be blogging. Okay, they also blog who only logon and comment. š Really, tremendous stuff.
What’s lurking under my defense of argumentation is a defense of reason as a unique way of sharing our work and lives. Yet I say that as someone deeply committed to the fact that “the heart has reasons of which reason knows not.”
I guess I want that place where intuitive angels and discursive human beings have a long lunch together. A place of ministry.