Category: Education

This is something I put together recently.

I believe the best teachers empower their students to think critically within the framework of an interpretive and practicing tradition.  By “think critically” I mean the capacity to understand and evaluate arguments and to formulate one’s own views about an issue.  By “an interpretive and practicing tradition” I mean to suggest that any kind of meaningful discourse is embedded in a human context that arises from particular historical circumstances and that may apply in various concrete ways to contemporary circumstances.

As a law professor and professor of theological ethics, it is not enough for me to teach “black letter” rules.  Students need to understand the reasons for a black letter rule so they can evaluate whether the arguments for or against the rule are sound.  But it is not enough for students merely to know how to be “critical.”  Even the notion of the “soundness” of an argument suggests that the argument refers to some source beyond its bare internal logic.

Any argument about law or policy is relatively “sound” or “unsound” only in relation to some ideal of human society and flourishing.   This is why critical thinking must occur in relation to an “interpretive and practicing tradition.”  Students need to learn to think critically about ethics, law and policy so that they are prepared to extend, refine and improve the tradition, in particular as they apply those rules within the concrete circumstances of their “practice.”

This emphasis on application “in practice” means that I try to demonstrate how high-level theories lead to concrete principles and rules that get worked out in individual cases.  In this regard it is useful to employ case law, case studies, historical examples, hypothetical scenarios, and “flipped classroom” exercises that help students experience what happens to theories, rules and principles “on the ground.”  A classroom is a “community of practice” in which learners are always being formed as whole people.

At the same time, the possibility that the “tradition” as a whole can be improved suggests some external ideals to which even the tradition itself is subject.  While all human circumstances are historically contingent and therefore in some sense unique, I believe there is an objective reality that gives authentic shape to our contingent concepts of ethics and the “good.”  Therefore, I believe the best teachers ultimately point their students towards reflection on what is universally good, true, just, and right, even if such ideals can be hard for any human being or human community to understand or apply.  Perhaps the best and most lasting lesson any teacher leaves his or her students, to paraphrase Aquinas and Aristotle, is a sense of commitment to the pursuit of a good that is beyond one’s self.

This year I applied to the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. One of my life goals is to earn a Ph.D. in public policy and/or theology. NYU’s Wagner school is a very good public policy school. I love NYU; I’m an alum of the NYU Law School (LL.M. 1999). The Wagner School has a part-time Ph.D. program, which would suit me very well since I teach just uptown at CUNY. However, I inquired of some of the Wagner faculty last fall about the Ph.D. program, and it appeared that my background and research focus isn’t specific enough to gain a slot in that program. So, one possible plan is to work on a Master’s in Public Policy at Wagner, get to know some the faculty, and then try to transfer into the Ph.D. Problem is, Wagner is very expensive. I figured I’d apply and see if I qualified for any scholarships.

Well, yesterday my wife fielded a call from the Assistant Dean for Admissions and Enrollment at Wagner, with a message that I should call back. Unfortunately, I keep getting voice mail. I’m almost certain that a call like this means I’ve qualified for some significant scholarship money. Of course, it could be something much more mundane — maybe they lost my essay, or want to invite me to an open house, or some other dumb thing. But I think they’d just do that by email. So — tune in tomorrow afternoon, and we’ll see!

My blogging buddy Jeff suggested I comment on this article about Daniel Drezner, a University of Chicago professor who blogs about international relations and politics. Drezner recently was denied tenure, and he apparently believes his blogging may have been a factor, particularly because he blogs from a libertarian-Republican perspective.

In last month’s issue of Books & Culture, Alan Guelzo published an article called Cracks in the Tower, which purported to outline problems with Christian liberal arts colleges. I wrote a letter to the Editor about Guelzo’s article, because I think it’s empirically and philosphically off-base. They didn’t publish my letter, but the editor told me there were many others like mine that were already in press. Unfortunately, the current issue of B&C contains only two letters about Guelzo’s piece, one of which is interesting but very narrow, and the other of which is anemic. So, for what it’s worth, here’s what I wrote: