Philosophy 222:
Education and Autonomy
Prof. Patrick Frierson
Class meets: T/Th at 1:00 in Olin 211
Prof. Frierson’s Office Hours: 2:30–3:30 PM Tuesday, 11–12 AM Wednesday, 9–10 AM
Thursday, and by appointment
This course focuses on a
particular issue in the philosophy of education: how to both respect and
cultivate the autonomy of one’s students.
Drawing primarily on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant, and Maria
Montessori, we will explore autonomy-based approaches to education, from raising
infants through developing mature adults.
The course will require at least one hour a week of teaching-oriented
service in the community, as well as regular papers and a substantial final
project.
Books
Requirements
Class Participation. (Not any
particular %, but final grade could be substantially affected.) In order to do well in classroom discussions,
you must come to each class having read and reread the material assigned for
that day. On your first reading, you
should be trying to get the main points of the reading, and you should also be
highlighting passages of particular importance that you will spend substantial
time working through on your rereading.
You should come to class with a general sense of most important points
from the reading, some possible implications, and an assessment. You should also ensure that any questions and
confusions you have about the reading are as clearly formulated as possible. “I didn’t get it” is not a good response to a
reading. “I can’t figure out why
Rousseau engages in such and such an activity with Emile on p. X, since he
doesn’t seem to defend it and it seems to contradict his claim on Y that Z” is
a great question/confusion. I will feel
free to call on any of you by name to pose questions/problems, summarize the
main point, or assess the reading. (If
the thought of this scares you to death, let me know. I will still call on you, but I will work
more with you to make it a less terrifying experience.)
Occasional Quizzes. If I feel
that these are necessary or would be helpful for the class, I’ll give
occasional quizzes on the readings for each seminar meeting, and, like
participation, these could substantially affect your final grade.
Service (10%). All students will be required
to participate in some form of service to the community that involves either
education or the service of children in one form or another. This service should amount to at least one hour per week. It can be either paid or unpaid. Some service opportunities that I recommend
are the following (links to all of these can be found at Whitman’s Center for Community
Service:
·
The Story Time
Project: A reading program for pre-school through third grade
children. Volunteers travel (by foot,
car, or bike) to local schools and read to the children and lead
discussions. This program is based in
the Center for Community Service at Whitman.
·
Whitman Mentor
Program: A school-based mentoring program in which volunteers are matched
up with elementary or middle school students in cooperation with the schools’
teachers and Intervention Specialists.
Students meet their mentees once or twice a week during the lunch hour.
·
Farm
Labor Camp Homework Helpers (bilingual Spanish speakers preferred)
Unless you are already
involved in a service activity that you enjoy and think would work well with the
class, I very strongly recommend that you talk to Lina Menard (menardla@whitman.edu) at the Center for Community
Service at Whitman. She can work
with you individually to find the best service opportunity for you. If you are not already involved in a service
activity, you should set up a meeting with her before the next class.
I will confer with the
supervisor at your community service location in order to assess how well you
have participated in this component of the course. I will also use your own self-reports of your
service, as recorded in your journal.
If you show up for your
service opportunity late more than once or miss your service at all, you cannot
get higher than a B for this portion of the course, unless you provide to both
me and your supervisor a note from a physician (or equivalent) saying that you
were incapable of serving. Except under
truly extraordinary circumstances, this notification must be provided at least
48 hours prior to your scheduled service.
If you show up late 3 times or miss more than once, you cannot get
higher than a C. If you show up late or
miss more often than that, you will Fail this portion of the course.
Journal (45%). Over the course of the
semester, you will be expected to keep a journal. The content of the journal is somewhat
open-ended, but it must include at least
the following:
·
A weekly
reflection on your service. You should
describe interesting or important events that occurred in the context of your
service. When appropriate you should use
your experiences to help you interpret or critique the readings or vice
versa. You should also talk about what
seems to be going well and what seems to be going poorly in your service
experiences.
·
Regular
reflections on the readings. For each
day that we have a new reading, you should be doing some new writing. Sometimes, I would expect this writing to be
little more than a couple of paragraphs.
At other times, I would hope that it would amount to a short paper.
·
Throughout
the course of the semester, I have included “Discussion Questions” in the
syllabus, and I may add additional ones over the course of the semester. For each discussion question, you should
write at least a paragraph long response in your journal. For at least one over the course of the
semester, you should write at least a 1000 word polished response. By “polished” I mean that it should not be
your initial draft journal entries, but a response that you have revised into a
well-organized, clear and concise, elegant essay. (For an example of the sort of draft process
that can lead to such an essay, see The
Philosophy Writing Tutor (online).)
·
By the end of
the semester, your journal should include at least 4000 words (about 12+ pages)
of polished papers of at least 1000
words (3+ pages) each. This can include
one or more polished responses to discussion questions, and the form of this
4000 words could be a single coherent 4000 word essay, or 2-4 shorter essays.
Book Review (15%). During our reading of Rousseau, you
should read a popular book that discusses either education or the raising of
children. Some books that you might read
include Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care
(by Dr. Spock), Caring for your Baby and
Young Child (by the
I
have also included an optional book review in the second half of the
semester. For this, you should choose a
different book and examine it from Montessori’s perspective, and/or from the
perspective on education and autonomy that you have developed over the course
the semester.
Final Project (30%). For your
final project, you must design either a “toy” (i.e., something for children to
work with) or a “game” (something for children to do) and write a justification
of the educational value of the toy/game.
(“Children” here can refer to any learner between birth and death.) The primary justification must involve a
1500-3500 word essay showing how the toy fits in with the educational
philosophies of Rousseau, Kant, and Montessori.
You should also provide a catalog description of no more than 200 words
that both describes the toy/game and briefly states its educational value.
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Assignments |
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Jan. |
15 |
Selections from Kant (I’ll hand these out in
class) |
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17 |
Rousseau, Discourse
on Inequality, Preface and Part One (Don’t read the Dedicatory Letter.) For some notes on the background to this work,
click here. |
Submit a short statement of what service
opportunity you have chosen for the semester, when and where it meets, and
(briefly) what you expect to be doing. |
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22 |
Rousseau, Discourse
on Inequality, entire |
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24 |
Rousseau, Discourse
on Inequality, entire (including Dedicatory letter) |
Discussion
Question: In the light of the Discourse on Inequality, how should children be educated? |
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29 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Preface and Book I (pp. 33-74) |
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31 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book II (pp. 76-163) |
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Feb. |
5 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Books II and III (to p. 185) |
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7 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book III (to p. 208) |
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12 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book III (to p. 208) |
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14 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book IV (to p. 266) |
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19 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book IV, Profession of Faith of the Vicar, (pp. 266-313) |
If
possible, please send me (by Monday afternoon) a question or comment on the
Profession of Faith. I’ll use these to
figure out what to focus on in class. |
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21 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book IV, cont. (to end of Book IV, p. 355) |
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26 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book IV, cont. (to end of Book IV, p. 355) |
Discussion
Question: Is there a difference
between boys and girls (and between men and women) that should make a
difference for pedagogy? |
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28 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book V, pp. 357-406 |
Discussion
Question: Is there a difference
between boys and girls (and between men and women) that should make a
difference for pedagogy? Book
Review #1 First Draft Due. Discuss what differences, if any, there are between
the autonomy in which Kant is interested and the sort of self-governance
enabled by the education described in Emile. Are there aspects of Emile’s education that
Kant could not endorse? Is the end
result something that Kant would endorse? |
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Mar. |
4 |
Rousseau, Emile,
Book V, pp. 357-480 |
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6 |
TBA |
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SPRING BREAK |
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25 |
Kant, Groundwork of
the Metaphysics of Morals, Preface and Sections I and II; and On
Education, entire. |
Discussion
Question: Choose one difference
in the educational methods of Kant and Rousseau and use that difference to discuss
whether and to what extent each’s educational methods reflect their ideals of
human excellence? Book
Review #1 Final Draft Due (March 9th, 9 PM) |
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27 |
Kant, On
Education, entire, “Methodology
of Pure Practical Reason” from the Critique
of Practical Reason, “Methodology
of Ethics” from the Metaphysics of
Morals, and selections from other writings. |
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Apr. |
1 |
Montessori, “The Foundations of my Pedagogy” in Basic Ideas, pp. 19-39 and The Discovery of the Child, chapters
1-2. |
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3 |
Montessori, The
Absorbent Mind, chapters 1-8.
(Optional: Basic Ideas, pp.
39-46.) |
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8 |
Montessori, The
Absorbent Mind, chapters 8-15.
(Optional: Basic Ideas, pp.
58-65.) |
Optional
Book Review #2 Rough Draft Due. |
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10 |
Montessori, The
Absorbent Mind, chapters 16-21. |
Discussion
Question: Focusing on one key aspect
of Montessori’s pedagogy, answer the question: Does Montessori satisfy (or
improve on, or fall short of) Kant’s “wish that Rousseau had shown how
schools could arise from” Emile? |
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15 |
Montessori, The
Absorbent Mind, chapters 22-end. (Optional: Basic Ideas, pp. 89-113.) |
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17 |
Montessori, The
Discovery of the Child, chapters 1-5 and appendix. (Optional: Basic Ideas, pp. 67-70, 75-89.) |
Submit journals on this day for final comments. |
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22 |
Montessori, The
Discovery of the Child, chapters 6-12. |
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24 |
Montessori, The
Discovery of the Child, chapters 13-26. |
Optional
Book Review #2 Final Draft Due |
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29 |
Project Draft (including write-up) is due at 11
am. |
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May |
1 |
Talk about progress on toys. |
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6 |
Play Games/Play with Toys |
Final versions of projects due. Final drafts of journals due. |
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8 |
(Date of Scheduled Final Exam…There will not be
an exam for this course.) |
This is the due date for the toy/game
justification essays. This is also the final date on which any work for the
class will be accepted. I will not
give extensions beyond this date (though I hope that by this time, you will
also want to continue working on the material from this class through the
summer…). |