News – Page 139 – Quixotic Pedagogue

Welcome Back

As we all come back to Helena High, I’m reminded of the syllabus written by David Foster Wallace, one of the best non-fiction writers of the past twenty years. In his course syllabus for an English composition course, he described a model for education you can expect from my classes:

“This does not mean we have to sit around smiling sweetly at one another for three hours a week. … In class you are invited (more like urged) to disagree with one another and with me—and I get to disagree with you—provided we are all respectful of each other and not snide, savage or abusive. … In other words, English 102 is not just a Find-Out-What-The-Teacher-Thinks-And-Regurgitate-It-Back-at-Him course. It’s not like math or physics—there are no right or wrong answers (though there are interesting versus dull, fertile versus barren, plausible versus whacko answers).”

Welcome back!

August 28, 2013/by dpogreba

Summer Hiatus

Uncategorized

Daily Wisdom is away for the summer, but will be back when school begins in August.

See you then.

July 15, 2013/by dpogreba

Is Forced Fatherhood Fair?

Student Blogs

Laurie Shrage outlines the argument:

The political philosopher Elizabeth Brake has argued that our policies should give men who accidentally impregnate a woman more options, and that feminists should oppose policies that make fatherhood compulsory. In a 2005 article in the Journal of Applied Philosophy she wrote, “if women’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a fetus, then men’s partial responsibility for pregnancy does not obligate them to support a resulting child.” At most, according to Brake, men should be responsible for helping with the medical expenses and other costs of a pregnancy for which they are partly responsible.

June 13, 2013/by dpogreba

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