Dialogue and debate
Just a brief reflection about teaching after which has been a mixed day: a great discussion with a colleague, framed by an extravagant lunch at Savoy, elation at being able to start work with some old friends on a new paper I feel strongly about, the feeling of chaos finally subsiding at work, yet saddened by the hardships encountered by two very dear friends in their careers.
But, my point was about teaching (my 2-year old daughter commented, when I came back from work today: "daddy has been working again. Daddy teaches people on how to do things"). Yesterday I had a lecture which I still feel unsure about. I have been trying to make sense of why this is.
In a nutshell, the problem seems to be that I had the feeling that I was not able to communicate with the students. I have little idea of whether what I was talking about made sense to them. The lecture, a guest lecture at HUT, was about critical viewpoints on organizational strategy. As the topic is often quite counterintuitive to many students unexposed to such ideas ("what do you mean? of course you need to have strategy!") , I found myself really pushing the topic through.
In the process, I may have forgotten that the point is not to push a topic through but to engage in a dialogue with the audience and have them engage the topic themselves. With more familiar and easily marketable topics such as strategy implementation, or whatever problem with practical or managerial relevance, it is much easier to try to locate the starting point the present students have on the topic. In situations where you have to validate the topic itself, dialogue easily becomes a debate.
Just a brief reflection about teaching after which has been a mixed day: a great discussion with a colleague, framed by an extravagant lunch at Savoy, elation at being able to start work with some old friends on a new paper I feel strongly about, the feeling of chaos finally subsiding at work, yet saddened by the hardships encountered by two very dear friends in their careers.
But, my point was about teaching (my 2-year old daughter commented, when I came back from work today: "daddy has been working again. Daddy teaches people on how to do things"). Yesterday I had a lecture which I still feel unsure about. I have been trying to make sense of why this is.
In a nutshell, the problem seems to be that I had the feeling that I was not able to communicate with the students. I have little idea of whether what I was talking about made sense to them. The lecture, a guest lecture at HUT, was about critical viewpoints on organizational strategy. As the topic is often quite counterintuitive to many students unexposed to such ideas ("what do you mean? of course you need to have strategy!") , I found myself really pushing the topic through.
In the process, I may have forgotten that the point is not to push a topic through but to engage in a dialogue with the audience and have them engage the topic themselves. With more familiar and easily marketable topics such as strategy implementation, or whatever problem with practical or managerial relevance, it is much easier to try to locate the starting point the present students have on the topic. In situations where you have to validate the topic itself, dialogue easily becomes a debate.
posted by Saku Mantere at 10:24 PM
1 Comments:
I find your comments about teaching interesting ... in the context of when I'm around David Hawk's classes (as when they were visiting Finland in November).
David Hawk cites Hasan Ozbehkhan, who taught strategy classes at Penn, starting off with lectures, but then gradually evolving to teach belly dancing. David Hawk says that he though he learned more from the belly dancing.
It's always interesting that David Hawk's students want to engaging me in "why" discussions, which can rapidly descend in theory of practice (Bourdieu) and being in the world (Heidegger). I don't get frustrated, but it's interesting to test the patience of the students.
I think the essential issue is the idea of "applied philosophy", which I noted was one of the original directions for West Churchman and Russell Ackoff when they were both at the Case Institute of Technology in the 1950s. "Applied philosophy" provided these researchers with a foundation, but followers have tended not to be so deep, so that rigour has been worn away with time.
The attitude of students makes a big difference in the discussion. If they're looking on a five-year horizon, philosophy can be pretty frustrating. On a 20-year horizon, maybe it's the only thing that helps.
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