The Church
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 61, No. 1 – Fall 2018
Editor: W. Madison Grace II
By Steven M. Cahn. New York: Routledge, 2018. 101 pages. Paperback, $24.95.
This volume is divided into two parts. The first seven chapters deal with the art and practice of teaching, and the second part deals with specific philosophical topics and how best to introduce them to students. The final chapter focuses on the importance institutions of higher learning should place upon good teaching. I limit my comments to Cahn’s philosophy of teaching as he develops it in the first six chapters, dealing only with his thoughts about teaching undergraduates.
Cahn lays out a teacher’s responsibilities. Teachers are responsible to know their subject better than their students. A teacher’s authority derives from the fact that a teacher is expected to be an expert in the subject he or she professes (2). Cahn makes the important but often forgotten point that “knowing a subject and knowing how to teach it effectively are quite different” (4). Cahn thinks there are three things that contribute to a teacher’s success: “motivation, organization, and clarification” (13).
Motivation can take many forms. Here the focus is on the kind of rhetoric calculated to foster in students the attention needed to engage philosophy with joy. Beginning class by asking students to imagine a scenario is much more effective than telling students to turn to page 40 of their textbook.
Organization involves the careful arrangement and presentation of material. Here Cahn is unsparing in his criticism of those teachers who are interested in helping only the best or most talented students. “Poor teachers,” he writes, “may not care whether their students understand a presentation, but successful teachers are eager to explain basic points to those who have trouble with them” (9). He concludes, “If someone has no interest in offering such help, that person is not cut out to be a teacher and is akin to a surgeon who is unhappy about having to deal with sick people” (9).
Clarification involves ensuring that students understand material presented to them. Clarification can be undermined if instructors speak too quickly and not as deliberately as they should (11). Lack of clarity can also result when teachers use terms with which students are unfamiliar.
Next, Cahn deals with a teacher’s concerns, such as the preparation of syllabi, the professor’s regular attendance at class sessions, keeping office hours, etc. Cahn singles out for discussion the importance of knowing student names. He recalls that a colleague with more than 200 students had managed to remember the names of all his students and even a little about their lives (21–22).
Regarding papers and examinations Cahn discusses the importance of making writing assignments clear. He also discusses preventative measures teachers can take to help students avoid such things as caricaturing positions with which they disagree, quoting sources improperly, and turning in written work with grammatical and spelling errors (24–25). Furthermore, Cahn provides a good reason for assigning exams. Exams motivate students to read the material assigned (28).
Regarding grades Cahn characterizes grades as “an expert’s judgment of the quality of a student’s work in a specific course” (32). He cautions against two equally misleading practices: never awarding high grades and never assigning low ones (35–36).
As far as a teacher’s relationship to students, Cahn singles out for discussion three pitfalls to be avoided by professors: becoming a student’s counselor, friend, or lover (40). The emotional difficulties faced by some students can lead caring professors to adopt the role of a counselor, and this is a role for which professors of philosophy, considered from the standpoint of their professional credentials, are unsuited. Friendship with students can also lead to preferential treatment that is inappropriate for the relationship between teacher and student, which is defined by the professional responsibilities of each. Furthermore, romantic relationships between professors and students, particularly when those students are members of a professor’s class, are inappropriate, and constitute, on the professor’s part, a blatant abuse of power (40).
I have one critique. An adjunct instructor reading this book is likely to feel a deep sense of inadequacy. Many adjunct instructors, because they are not paid enough money to live on, must devote several hours a week to another occupation to make ends meet. Some are fortunate enough to land several teaching gigs, but my surmise is that just as many are not. Some advice to adjunct instructors about how to deal with the problems they face as part-time teachers would be a welcome addition to the book if it is reissued.
Cahn has offered important considerations about the noble task of teaching. If any aspiring or veteran teacher reads Teaching Philosophy and as a result becomes better at the craft, then Cahn’s purpose in writing the book will have been fulfilled.
