Category Archives: Plato

We wrapped up our first unit on Republic proper today, and the discussions were quite good. I have to keep reminding the students (and myself) both how alien Plato’s world was and how much we (the students and their teacher) … Continue reading →

Thursday’s classes were good, and I actually mananged to have two, very different conversations in them. Since I remember 11:00 a little better, I’ll start with that. Their main concern was that Plato considers obscuring information for the good of … Continue reading →

Today’s reading in Plato was pretty much setup; the real argument begins in Thursday’s reading. Nonetheless, my classes both engaged the text with some enthusiasm, and I finished my teaching day tired but pleased with the results. The more I … Continue reading →

Yesterday’s classes were great; I really do have two good groups this year. I did kick myself after 11:00 class for trying to railroad them into the same discussion that 8:00 had. It’s a bad habit of mine, and I … Continue reading →

This fall’s first-year comp groups are getting off to a really good start. Nobody seems to have flaked out utterly on paper one, and so far the discussions of Plato have been quite good. We launch into the Republic this … Continue reading →

My 9:30 class (one I’m taking, not that I’m teaching) was mysteriously vacant today, so I’ll go ahead and write now about today’s Plato classes. (Those I teach.) Now that I’m doing Tuesday-Thursday comp classes and have fewer days to … Continue reading →

Well, the school year is back, and hopefully I’ll be posting here with some regularity about my two freshman comp classes and the groovy things that we discuss. Both groups (I teach two sections per semester) look promising. I did … Continue reading →

It would be kind of cool if this blog post landed on some Star Wars fan’s google search. That aside, we actually finished up Monday with his bizarre section on reincarnation. I’m still not sure whether the story of Er … Continue reading →

We had some pretty good discussions yesterday in class. Plato finally got to the dictatorial personality and the dictatorial community. The contrast between the two is sharp: in a dictatorial society, the dictator is the most fearsome person Plato describes. … Continue reading →

I’ve got my routine down for teaching academic writing, but teaching philosophy is still before me. I tried to teach the philosophical distinctions between positive freedom/freedom-for and negative freedom/freedom-from yesterday, and I’m not sure I was clear at all. The … Continue reading →

No, I’ve not become a Republican. At least not the kind that wears elephant pins. Yesterday in class I made up for my lost Thoreau time and took on the role of Plato, arguing with some force that for the … Continue reading →

I love talking with freshmen about what the heck they’re in college for. That was the subject today, and as usual, Plato provided us a clear, theory-heavy model against which students could push. Without much effort at all I got … Continue reading →

No new Plato material until next Monday, so I get to ramble a bit. (I don’t think anyone would stop me were I to ramble anyway, but I need to give myself an excuse on occasion.) I’m genuinely pleased with … Continue reading →

Just my luck–the day comes to teach Plato’s allegory of the cave, and my voice is failing because of a cold. Ah, well. I think that most famous bit of Plato will serve nicely to introduce paper 4, the most … Continue reading →

Today I was far more articulate in 10:00 than in 9:00. I’m trying to use our class’s online discussion board to alleviate my ineptitude early, but I’m going to have to do some serious recovering in class Wednesday. The discussion … Continue reading →

My discussions over sex and child-rearing in Plato were less than satisfactory; I could not keep together the disparate elements and form them into coherent discussions. Plato’s jumps from new ways of marriage to child-rearing practices to the use of … Continue reading →