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The voice of the American Consortium for Equity in Education at ace-ed.org | Host Larry Jacobs facilitates rich discussions with innovative educators, thought leaders, authors and the leaders within the education industry to promote equity, access and opportunity for every student in every school.
I'm David Cicero, and this
is Education Talk Radio.
Artificial intelligence, AI, may be the
fastest adopted technology in history.
In just a few years, it's become a
tutor, a writing assistant, a research
partner, and for many students, a constant
companion in the learning process.
Now, from what I'm seeing, educators
are responding in different ways.
Some are seeing enormous promise,
personalized support, greater
access to information, maybe
saving some time letting it take
over routine teaching tasks.
But many have concerns.
They're seeing students turn to AI before
struggling through a problem themselves,
and it's causing them to question what
happens to writing, critical thinking?
What happens to authentic
student voice when a machine
can generate work in seconds?
Now, much of the conversation around
AI focuses on policies and tools
and implementation, and rightly so,
because AI is available right now, and
teaching and learning hasn't stopped.
But underneath those conversations
are deeper questions that we should
be wrestling with to get this right.
I think back to my own
experience as a student.
Some of the most meaningful learning
experiences I had weren't simply
about acquiring information.
They involved developing a relationship
with a subject, and in some cases,
a relationship with the people who
helped me see the subject in a new way.
And so as AI becomes more and
more capable, I find myself
wondering, what role do those
relationships play in learning?
What should students
still do for themselves?
And what, if anything, should remain
fundamentally human, no matter how
powerful these technologies become?
Today I'm joined by Troy Jollimore.
Troy is a professor of philosophy at
California State University Chico.
He's also an accomplished poet and author,
holding a PhD in philosophy from Princeton
University, and has published widely on
ethics, relationships, identity, and what
it means to be a thoughtful human being.
More recently, he's been writing
and speaking about the challenges
AI poses for teaching and learning.
Troy, it is great to have you with us.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, David.
It's great to be here.
Awesome.
So now before we talk about
AI specifically, Troy, what is
education fundamentally for?
Well, that is a great
question and a huge question.
Thank you for asking it, first of all.
I think that all too often, you know,
we plunge right into these conversations
without pausing to reflect on that
sort of fundamental issue regarding
what it is we're conversing about,
and I think that can be a mistake.
Of course, I'm a philosopher, so I'm sort
of constitutionally inclined to think.
Before we plunge in, we reflect, right?
That's how we do it.
Yeah.
Fantastically.
I'm, I'm glad you feel like this is a good
starting place, 'cause I thought it was.
It's, again, it's always myâ¦
The problem is I get stuck in
that starting place, right?
Right, right, right.
The problem's getting past it.
And, and indeed, you know, I, I think
this, this question, any adequate
answer to this question would just
take all the time we have and then
some , and so I have to watch that.
Uh, and that's also assuming that
I, I even know the answer, that
I know what education is for.
And I'm not just saying that as some
sort of, you know, reflex gesture
towards humility or something.
I mean, I really think it's important
to understand about education
that it is mysterious in some way.
It's, it's like philosophy
itself, or it's like art maybe.
We know it does something.
We know it's good for us and
very important, but you can't
say exactly what it's for.
And so when I put a poem out into the
world, for instance, I don't know what
effect that poem is gonna have on people.
Um, I don't design poems to
have a particular effect, right?
They don't work that way.
And it's really kind of like
that with education too.
We can educate somebody, but we don't know
what they're gonna do with that exactly
or what effect it's going to have on them.
What we do know is if they genuinely
become educated, they're gonna be
a different person, and they'll
have a different sort of life.
There is something transformative about
it, that much we can say Now, of course,
from a, from a sort of a common sense,
you know, utilitarian perspective,
we could say, and, and there'sâ¦
It's important to say this, but it's
also important not to think it's the
only thing to say, that what education
is for is to make the kinds of
individuals that we need as a society.
And of course, that's right, and
you'll notice, by the way, I say
make rather than produce because I
hate that word produce because I, I
hate the language of production and
efficiency that just seems to be being
imposed on everything we do right now.
And, and I, I think it's a big
mistake to think of education as a
product or even as involving products.
But we do need educated people.
Uh, a lot of the problems we're
having right now as a society have
their roots in the fact that most
people in our society are not being
well-educated, and I'm including
people who get university degrees.
I think the very large majority of
graduating university students these
days come out of university knowing
very little about their own culture,
about their own history, uh, the part
of the world where they live, and then
along with that, you know, possessing
really only the, the rudimentary
skills for thinking about questions of
value and ethics and related things.
So I wanna mention that utilitarian
point, uh, because it relates to these
questions, very important questions
about the economics of education, how
it gets paid for because, you know, we
need to remember that students aren't
the only ones who benefit from education.
We all benefit from it.
And so this idea of seeing students
as customers and consumers, you know,
who have to do the paying because
they're the ones who get the beneficial
product, it is just so wrong, and
we need to get rid of that, right?
So I, I mention the utilitarian
point for that reason, and again,
then I want to immediately say, but
that's not the most important thing.
We do need educated people,
but fundamentally, education
is for the people themselves.
It's for people to
realize their potential.
It's for people to have a true knowledge
of reality and an acquaintance with
the world and to achieve a kind of
self-knowledge because if you don't know
your culture, you don't really know who
you are or why you are the way you are
and why you think the things you do.
It's to help give them that reflective
capacity to stand back and critically
reflect on the things that they
believe and wonder whether they
should and whether there are other
things that maybe they should believe
instead And it's, it's justâ¦
And this'll sound very idealistic,
but I am very idealistic about this.
Education is about giving people the
capacity to live a richer, fuller life.
It changes how we experience things.
It's not just about what we can do
with it, i- and it certainly isn't
just about the jobs you can get with
a degree or something like that.
It's about the quality of your conscious
life, to be able to live with some idea of
why you are the way you are and how you've
become that way, why things are the way
they are, and to be able to derive as much
richness as possible from each moment.
I think that's what
education is really for.
So I think what I, what I'm pulling from
you just a, in that last sentence was
that o- one of the things that, that
we're, we're fair- that you're fairly
certain that education is for is to
help people, um, feel satisfied in their
conscious life as they live as humans.
I, I don't know thatâ¦
I, I worry about that word satisfied,
because I think- Okay ⦠sometimes
I might, education might make people
feel unsatisfied, and that's good.
Uh, people sometimes
should be unsatisfied.
A, a friend of mine or a colleague
used to say, um, what was it again?
He, he said, uh, "We are not
comforting the afflicted.
We are here to afflict the comfortable."
And, and I think there's
something to that.
Yeah.
So that ultimately there is- Yeah ⦠a
kind of satisfaction, I think, yes,
that people should be able to attain,
but I think along the way, there might
be a lot of experienced dissatisfaction
that, that they wouldn't have had
if they hadn't become educated.
When they get those critical
capacities again and start to look
at things and think, "Well, wait, you
know, things shouldn't be this way.
They could be better than this."
Right.
No, I'mâ¦
And, and when, right when you said that,
I, I, I thought to myself s- ⦠in
some of my studies as a, uh, when
I was studying for my, um, master's
degree in, in math teaching, I, I was
learning comparative education, and
a lot of what I learned definitely
made me feel uncomfortable, right?
I did learn things- Yeah ⦠that made
me feel uncomfortable, and that was okay.
Yeah.
And that ch- and that
changed me in some way Right?
That helped me reflect on my own life.
It, it gave me a new lens to think
about myself and to think about
the, the world around me too.
Yes.
And actually putting it in that way I
think is very good, because maybe what
I would like to say is there is like
sort of a higher level of satisfaction
in a sense, or even a higher level of
comfort that you can derive when you
learn that, as you just said, it is
sometimes okay to be uncomfortable.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Now, in the begin- in the, the
start of your answer, you, well, you
sort of framed it in the beginning.
Um, you mentioned education sort
of like a, like a, like a painting
or a poem, and you put it out into
the world and you're not quite sure
what it's going to be used for.
Now, then you sort of said but there is
this side where, you know, we, we do need
to educate folks to, you know, contribute
to society, um, to be able to, um, to,
to be employable and things like that.
Now, that side, that aspect that we're
unsure about what it becomes in the world
that we, we, we really probably cannot
know, um, for every student, right?
I mean, uh, if I'm a teacher I've
got, you know, maybe 90 students a
day, and they all go out into the
world w- you know, equipped with maybe
what they've learned in my classroom.
To me, that starts to point back
to, um, back to the, the, the
moment that education is happening.
Even though we don't know what it is for
in the long run, in those moments when
I'm sitting with a student, when I'm
teaching them and, and they're learning,
I'm wondering what that is for, right?
And then I think actually my
next question for you kind of
points to that, that moment.
I'm gonna ask that question, and you
can tell me if you think it relates.
Um, last year in The Walrus, you
wrote an article, and you wroteâ¦
It really struck me, so that's
why I'm pulling it in here.
"I once believed my students and
I were in this together, engaged
in a shared intellectual pursuit."
What is that shared pursuit
that you're talking about, and
what do you feel had been lost?
What did you feel had been lost?
Yeah, I do think that question relates,
and maybe one of the things that it
brings up that I hadn't really thought
of before until you just in that moment
where you said that, is that along with
the question of what education is for,
which again, we so often interpret as
sort of a, a means end question, right?
What does it lead to ultimately
or something like that.
But education is also a kind
of aesthetic experience.
You know, being in the classroom,
taking part in discussions, that can
lead to good stuff later on, but it's
also valuable at the moment, right?
In and of itself, I think being part of
a lively class with real thinking going
on in a group of people and sharing that
and collaborating is such a valuable
and hopefully pleasurable experience in
its own right that even if it didn't do
anything for you later on down the road,
I think it would still be worth having.
And I think maybe that's part of what is
being lost now, the sense of that value.
'Cause, you know, I, uh, in most
of my classes, given the nature
of what I'm teaching, I have them
do writing, and they write papers
or whatever, and they submit them.
And of course, I was always aware of that,
that some of them cheated in some way.
Some of them plagiarized, whatever, got
somebody else, you know, paid them to
write the essays, and I hated that and
wished I could stop it from happening.
But I think that I naively assumed it
was a fairly small number of people,
and part of what's happened over the
last couple years is that as the means
to doing that sort of thing have become
much more widely and cheaply available
because of AI, it's become very apparent
to me how many students actually
will do that if they have the chance.
A- and concomitantly, you know, how few
students obviously value the activity
of essay writing or how few students
really seem to understand or place any
value on what it is we're there to do
Um, the, the shared pursuit, you know,
is the shared intellectual activity
of trying to understand and make sense
of things, and the whatever particular
subject matter we're looking at.
Um, and, and now students can get credit
for a course, especially, of course,
in online courses, but they try it in
other sorts of courses too, and I'm
sure sometimes they get away with it.
Uh, now they can just have a
paper, uh, generated by an AI.
They can get AIs to take
their quizzes, right?
And so on.
And again, this has made apparent
to me, you know, just not that just
a few, but so many students see the
whole educational enterprise as a sham.
They don't really believe there's any
point to them writing the papers or doing
the reading or learning anything about
the whatever it is that we are studying.
Uh, or maybe, and I think, you
know, at least some of them, they,
they just don't believe there is
such a thing as learning, right?
They have no conception of the idea
that understanding something is actually
different from not understanding it.
So maybe some of these students have never
really experienced the feeling of really
understanding something in a deep way.
And yet despite that, they've
been allowed to pass and continue.
They've been passed on by all the
people who got them before, until
now they end up in my classroom.
And these people think very naturally,
as one would, that the whole educational
world is just kind of a pretense, right?
It's a little show that we put
on for some bizarre reason.
We pretend like it matters, and we
make them jump through these hoops.
And I've definitely had the experience of
talking to students who, you know, some
who I've caught plagiarizing or whatever,
who are puzzled by why I care, right?
They don't really- Mm-hmm
understand.
Uh, they don't know how I can
think that it does matter.
Or I think in some cases, they think
that really I don't think it matters
either, and that for some reason I'm
just playing this role, and I'm putting
on my little show and insisting on it.
But the value that there is to be gotten
out of actually reading, thinking,
talking about stuff, writing a paper
about it to show what you think and
to show that you understand it and so
on, that value just seems to escape
them entirely, and that's part of
what AI makes possible for basically
now, you know, all of our students.
So, okay, you, you, you said quite a few
things in there that I could follow up on.
I'm now seeing this could be a much longer
conversation, but I do have one follow-up
question on that one You said that you're
not sure that students think that there's
a difference between understanding
something and not understanding something,
and what-- That's, that's really deep.
I, you know, when I got my math degree,
there was a, um, a lot of moments where
I had my face in that math book in a
library alone for hours and hours and
hours and doing problems, and, uh, I
also minored in philosophy, uh, as well.
And as I studied, what started as
something I had to do ended up being
something that it gave me something.
It gave meâ¦
I, I mean, I, I'm just thinking of
this now, so it'll be difficult,
but it, it made me feel good,
gave me some f- some identity, um,
something that was uniquely my own.
It helped me believe in myself.
It, it did a lot of things to me that I
didn't know that it would until I did it.
I may not have this thread connected
exactly clear, but I'm wondering,
maybe this idea that students don't
think there's a difference between
understanding something and not
understanding something, is there a
link to a lack of value in themselves?
Yeah, I think that in some way,
whether they perceive it that way or
not themselves, because they might
not experience it that way, but I
think that to truly value yourselfâ¦
I, I mean, this goes back to the fact
that I, I agree with Aristotle about
a lot of things he said about a good
human life, including the idea that
to have a good life, a large part of
that means developing your capacities.
I mean, humans are born with and
have the potential to learn to
do all sorts of amazing things.
You know, the, the human brain is the most
complicated, still the most complicated,
most mysterious, and most interesting
thing in the known universe, despite
its very small, compact size, right?
It's incredible.
A- and humans are capable of
learning to do things th- that are
extremely extraordinary, I think.
Uh, and we all have those capabilities,
but if you don't develop your capacity
to do anything, then you end up not
really being realized as a person.
And I think that, again, th-
there, there's ways of getting
things done that aren't exactly
ways of doing things, right?
Um- Hmm ⦠if I could sit down at
a computer program and just hit a
button and say, "Compose a song for
me," and it does, I've got a song.
But it's not really mine, and I
haven't really done it, and it's
not like my friend who is a musician
who actually writes a song, right?
It's, you know, if you know how to
drive a car, that's different from being
driven around by somebody else, right?
There's an inherent value in being able
to do things, and being able to do things
always involves a kind of understanding.
And, and, you know, I, my, my fear,
my sort of nightmare vision at the
moment, I guess, is of the human being
who never learns how to do anything
because they live in a world where
everything can be done for them,
and they don't see any reason to
learn to do anything for themselves-
Mm-hmm ⦠which is the state we seem to
be coming closer and closer towards now.
Yeah, there's definitely narrative
that essentially posing that
that is a real possibility.
So we, we, we, we've been talking
about students thinking, well, there's
no difference between understanding
something and not understanding something,
and it leads me to a question that
I think is particularly important a-
as we think about what we should want
students to do and want for ourselves.
Is there a difference between
acquiring information, knowing
something, and being educated?
What do you think?
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, that word information,
like I always bristle a little when
people sort of equate education with the
transmission of information becauseâ¦
And it depends on what you mean by the
word of course, but a lot of stuff can
count as information that has almost
nothing to do with understanding or even
with knowledge in a substantial sense.
Like, you know, if I know the
exact weight of my laptop, if
I know that it weighs 2.4256
pounds, that's information.
Uh, and, and in a very trivial
sense, it's knowledge because
it's something that I know.
But it's not knowledge in any
interesting or substantial sense, and
it doesn't help me understand anything.
And so if all of the things that I
knew just consisted of information of
that sort, then I wouldn't understand
anything even though I would know a lot.
And, and so that's putting it in
terms of kind of a difference between
kinds of facts, but it's also the
way facts are arranged, right?
Like, so the difference in the
kind of facts might be partly that
those facts are kind of atomistic.
They don't connect with anything.
And understanding is holistic.
You need to know a lot of different
things, and they have to be networked
and connected in some way in order
to really understand something,
to get to what to think of as, as
knowledge in the substantial sense.
So, you know, I might know a whole
lot of biographical facts about some
philosopher, like let's say Leibniz.
I know when he was born and when
he died and where, you know,
and so on, and what he did.
I know the titles of his writings
and stuff, you know, who he knew.
But that wouldn't mean that I understood
anything about him as a thinker,
that I understood his ideas and his
arguments or anything like that Now
contrast that with somebody who has
never heard of Leibniz, but they do
understand a lot about philosophy,
and now they encounter Leibniz.
They're in a class and somebody
brings him up and says, "Here's
one of Leibniz's arguments."
They read a little
passage, whatever, right?
The person who understands philosophy
would be able to grasp the argument,
hopefully, and then they'd be able
to come up with objections for the
argument, and they'd be able to say,
"Well, here's why somebody might
think this sort of thing," right?
Something like that.
They would be able to say, you
know, "Well, here's how Hume would
respond to that argument," right?
Or, "Here's how, what
Descartes would've said."
Or, you know, "Oh, I can see how
Wittgenstein sort of picked up on that
and was influenced maybe by that," or,
or, or how what Hegel said, uh, is an
expression of a related idea, right?
They can do all this stuff with
these ideas because they possess this
network of, of connected ideas already.
And then maybe the most important thing
ultimately they can do with it, this is
kind of ultimately what you're aiming for,
although I think all of this is important.
But ultimately it would be great if
they could say something like, "Oh, I
can see how this idea that this person
had several hundreds of years ago, who,
who I never even heard of until today,
I can see how that idea influenced me.
I can see how that idea helped shape
the culture and the framework of ideas
and assumptions that I grew up in,
and now I understand something about
myself that I didn't know before."
So that's understanding, right?
That's what genuine education enables
us to do and should look like.
And, and I hope, you know, it's
obvious how far that goes beyond, you
know, just a bunch of information.
It sounds like we pointed all the
way back, that explanation I think,
and you can correct me if I'm wrong.
It pointed all the way back to
understanding myself in a deeper
and deeper way, and even the people
around me and the, the events around
me in a deeper and deeper way.
Am I getting that right?
Am Iâ¦
I'm trying to, like, kind of
summarize for myself what you said.
Yeah.
I think that's exactly
what I was trying to say.
I think that- We sometimes carry
around a false dichotomy between
self-knowledge or self-understanding
and knowledge of the world.
But we are part of the world, and
we reflect the world, and we think
the things that we do for reasons.
There is a history to that.
So, you know, I've had people say to
me, "Oh, uh, Socrates just wants us
to be obsessed with ourselves 'cause
he says understand yourself," right?
Know thyself, whatever.
But genuine self-understanding involves
understanding so much that is not you.
It involves a huge engagement
with the much larger world.
That's the only way to
really understand yourself.
And yeah, I think ultimately,
I'm not gonna make the claim that
self-understanding and self-knowledge is
the only thing that education is good for,
but it might be the most important thing,
and I really don't know of any other way
to get it other than through education.
I, I like what you said there, that
so much about understanding myself
is understanding what's not me.
That is extremely revealing, I think,
a- as to what it means to be human.
From what philosophy I have studied
years and years and years ago, I
did take away this idea that we are
humans being among other humans.
We're not existing in isolation.
We exist with other human beings, and
a part of who we are is influenced
by those other human beings, and we
interact with those human beings.
And so I begin to wonder if more and
more teaching is influenced by artificial
intelligence, what, what happens?
And so my, my question to you is,
as schools adopt AI, what parts of
teaching and learning do you think
should remain fundamentally human?
I mean, I guess it's a given that schools
are going to adopt AI, which I wish
they wouldn't . And so, you know, so,
so we have to ask the question, although
I would prefer to be in a place where
we didn't have to ask it or answer it.
Um, what parts of teaching and learning
should remain fundamentally human?
I-- This is such a hard question to
answer, um, partly because, of course,
you know, I can talk about the AIs we
have now, but even those are developing
very quickly, and I certainly don't know
what AIs will be able to do in the future.
But I'm certainly tempted to say
that All of it just has to be human.
I don't really understand the idea that
there are parts of teaching and learning
that could be anything other than human.
Hmm.
And, you know, even if we end up with
AIs that are good teachers somehow,
the, the way that we'll do that is
by designing them and making them
so that they imitate human beings.
That's the only-
Yeah ⦠way you can do it.
That's, uh, that's very interesting.
Okay.
Okay.
I think ultimately that's
what it has to be, right?
Otherwiseâ¦
A- and then of course that
raises the question, but
then what's the point, right?
Ifâ¦
It, it, it's similar to
when people say, umâ¦
Look, I guess this is bringing up a,
a, a real beef of mine which is that
I've become increasingly frustrated
with this tendency that so many of us
seem to have towards tech- a kind of
technophilia where we love technological
solutions to problems that we don't
actually need technology to solve.
And, and so when I hear people say, "Oh,
you know, AI is great because it'll be
able to care for children, and it'll be
able to care for the elderly, and it'll
be able to, you know, teach," and so on,
uh, it just drives me crazy because we
know how to do all those things already.
We already know that these
are not hard problems for us.
Itâ¦
The, the idea, you know, oh, we,
we've had no idea how to take care
of old people and give them company
until now technology has solved that
problem for us is utterly absurd.
We've always known how to do that.
Now, if society doesn't wanna put
resources into making sure that
happens, if all of us are too selfish
and too individualist and so on to
actually spend time with elderly
people who need company, well,
that's a whole other question, right?
That's an ethical question, and why
is it that we've become that way?
But I don't think the solution to
any of these questions is necessarily
technological, and I think there's
something sort of awful about the idea
that we might all breathe, you know, a
collective sigh of relief at the idea
that, oh, we don't have to spend time
with elderly people anymore 'cause now we
have robots that can do it, and we don't
have to spend time with children anymore
because now we have robots that can do it.
That just strikes me, you know,
as, as really sort of indicating
something very bad about ourselves.
To bring this back to
self-knowledge again, I guess.
At that point we need to look inside
and say, "What's going on with us that
we've even become the sort of people who
would think that, that, that that's a
good thing and that that is actuallyâ¦
that sort of thing is a good solution
to these, what we're calling problems?"
Look, I, I have parents who are
elderly And I could have never
imagined what I would learn from
them at this stage in my life.
I could have never imagined as I speak to
them, um, now, um, at 46 years old, uh,
the conversations we have, what I learn
from them, what I imagine they might be
thinking, and then I decide to ask, and
it might be that or might be different.
And I, I see them get older
and, and manage their lives.
It, it, it has an impact on you.
It does.
I'm learning about myself.
In fact, I'm planning
for myself based on that.
I'm like, "I wonder what I'll think.
I wonder what I'll do here.
Oh, I, I should be-- I wanna be
that way," or, "I don't wanna be
that way because I'd like to be this
in this situation when I'm older."
I mean, I am learning about myself.
I'm just taking your, uh, example
around, you know, robots taking
care of the elderly, right?
Um, because there's something to learn
there about myself as I interact, um, with
people, whether they're children or, you
know, uh, adults or, or elderly, right?
As I interact with people, I learn.
And, and I, I had this, this thought
as I was kinda preparing our, our
conversation today and, and thinking
about speaking with you, and one of
the things that I learned learning from
a teacher, a person, right, a human,
that I'm not so sure I could get from
a machine, even if it was a, a robot.
They taught me without teaching
me, I think, what it means for
a human to practice the subject.
Mm-hmm.
I saw their passion, their struggle.
I, I understood parts of their history.
I think as I, as, as I was thinking
about all this before our talk, I
feel like they may have modeled for
me what it means to be a person doing
math or doing social studies, right?
Like I, I have a friend, Anthony Fusco,
uh, an old social studies teacher I
used to-- He's a good friend of mine,
and we used to work at the same school.
You walk in his classroom, and he,
he collects signatures, and he's got
so-- And they could be on, they, they,
they could be on official documents.
They could be on a napkin.
He doesn't care.
He wants, you know,
presidential signatures.
He's got articles and signatures,
and you walk in his classroom,
they're all over the walls and
framed A, right, a, a robot's not
gonna collect signatures, right?
You learn something from that Yes And, and
so if you could help me understand that a
little better, I'm onto something, right?
For real.
Oh, yeah.
No, I love what you're s- I
think you already understand
what you're saying very well.
Um, look, when I was, I think it was
my second year as an undergraduate,
I had a philosophy professor, um, Dr.
Burns, Steven Burns back at Dalhousie,
and I had just sort of become, I
just sort of realized that philosophy
was actually what I wanted to do
after a couple of false starts.
And I remember this class very vividly.
I can picture the classroom.
And I remember in particular how he would
pace around the classroom and, and talk
about, you know, Descartes and Locke
and these early modern philosophers.
And, and then he would get to a point in
the dialectic where something he would say
would sort of puzzle himself, or someone
would ask a question, and he wanted to do
a good job of answering the question, or
it was actually a hard question, whatever.
And he would just stop, and he
would then maybe sort of wander over
towards the window and stand there and
stare out the window as he thought.
And he would do this sometimes for
three or four min- I mean, it probably
felt like more, but I'm, I'm guessing
it was only probably a couple minutes.
But it was so uncomfortable
for us at first, 'cause I had
never seen anyone do this.
And I'm sure everyone else, you know,
in the classroom, or most of them,
I shouldn't presume, but I'm sure
most people had similar experience.
Because, you know, we, we are brought
up in a society where you're supposed
to have your answers ready to go.
And I mean, if you're the professor,
you're the expert, you should know, right?
Like, the idea of having to stop
and think about this was radical in
some way And that experience really
stayed with me and, and I think I
thought about it from time to time.
And, and then many years later, I found
this little book by Hubert Dreyfus
called On the Internet, and there's
a part in there where he's talking
about, uh, online education and why
he thinks it's always lacking in
something that in-person education has.
And he says, "Look, the, the
physical presence of the teacher is
foundational, to actually be in the
room with that person as a body as
they think," because thinking, you
know, it, it's a biological process.
I mean, if we, if we meet ideas in a book
or, you know, now online, whatever, on
a computer screen or something, we're
encountering the results of thinking.
But the actual thinking
process is like digestion.
It's a biological process,
right, that somebody does in
real time in a real place.
They're actually there.
It takes time.
And, and Dreyfus talks at some length
and very, very eloquently about how
much we learn by watching someone
think and by watching someone like that
interact with their subject matter.
Uh, even in those quick moments, you
know, of just seeing thinking happen
in front of us and noticing, oh, you
know, this is how much time they took.
Uh, he said this, and
then he rethought it.
He went back to the beginning.
He said, "No, no, that's not right.
Let me try this," right?
Like, you don't get that from
a book, and you certainly
aren't gonna get it from an AI.
But you can get it from a person.
Mm-hmm.
So I learned so much, I think, about
being a philosopher by literally
watching someone philosophize, that
is, watching them think in front of me.
And then, of course, over the years I also
got to know him as a person, and I got
to know other profs in the department,
and that's where we get into the kind of
stuff you mentioned about people's passion
and their enthusiasm for the subject.
And I, I learned, you know, I saw how
they incorporated being a philosopher
with the rest of their lives and how
it was all kind of wrapped up together.
And I saw that they were happy.
I saw that doing this made them happy,
that this was a model for a good life.
So I think in so many ways, knowing
them as persons, and I really, again,
want to accentuate the physical
acquaintance, actually being present
with them, just taught me so much about
philosophy that I couldn't possibly
have absorbed in any other way.
Troy, I really appreciate this
deep and thoughtful discussion.
Thank you so much for coming on today.
Thanks for joining us on Education Talk
Radio, a part of the B Podcast Network.
If there's a topic you'd like us to
tackle or have a guest idea, send me
a message at dciceroedutalk@gmail.com.
Thanks for listening, and
we'll see you next time.