{"id":12183,"date":"2014-09-09T08:41:01","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T15:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=12183"},"modified":"2014-09-09T08:41:01","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T15:41:01","slug":"norms-for-respectful-classroomseminar-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/09\/norms-for-respectful-classroomseminar-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"Norms for Respectful Classroom\/Seminar Discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Chalmers is compiling a useful set of <a href=\"http:\/\/consc.net\/norms.html\">guidelines for respectful, constructive, and inclusive philosophical discussion<\/a>. It makes sense to concentrate on a single field, like philosophy, since customs often vary wildly from one discipline to the other &#8212; but there&#8217;s really nothing specifically &#8220;philosophical&#8221; about the list, it could easily be adopted in just about any classroom or seminar environment I can think of. (Online, alas, is another story.)<\/p>\n<p>What immediately strikes me are (1) how nominally unobjectionable all the suggestions are, and (2) how so many of them are routinely violated even in situations that wouldn&#8217;t strike us as relatively civil and respectful. Here are some cherry-picked examples from the list:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Don&#8217;t interrupt.<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t present objections as flat dismissals (leave open the possibility that there&#8217;s a response).<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t dominate the discussion (partial exception for the speaker here!).<\/li>\n<li>Unless you&#8217;re speaker, existing questioner, or chair, don&#8217;t speak without being called on (limited exceptions for occasional jokes and other very brief interjections, not to be abused).<\/li>\n<li>The chair should attempt to balance the discussion among participants, prioritizing those who have not spoken before.<\/li>\n<li>Prioritize junior people in calling on questions (modified version: don&#8217;t prioritize senior people).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Not that I&#8217;m saying we <em>shouldn&#8217;t<\/em> strive to be as respectful as David&#8217;s lists suggests &#8212; just that we don&#8217;t even try, really. How many times have you been in a seminar in which a senior person in the audience interrupted and dominated discussion? I can imagine someone defending that kind of environment, on the grounds that it leads to more fun and feisty give-and-take, and perhaps even a more rapid convergence to the truth. I can testify that I was once at a small workshop &#8212; moderated by David Chalmers &#8212; where the &#8220;hand-and-finger system&#8221; was employed, according to which you raise a hand to ask a new question, and a finger to ask a follow-up to someone else&#8217;s question, and the chair keeps a list of who is next in the queue. Highly structured, but it actually worked quite well, carving out some space for everyone&#8217;s questions to be treated equally, regardless of their natural degree of assertiveness or their social status within the room. (If you&#8217;ve ever been at a &#8220;Russian&#8221; physics seminar, imagine exactly the opposite of that.) I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to judge whether enforcing these norms more actively would create a more hospitable academic environment overall.<\/p>\n<p>David also suggests some related resources:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu\/nmarkos\/Courses\/114\/Philosophy_114\/The_Rules.html\">Rules for philosophy classes<\/a> (Ned Markosian)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/csi-jenkins.tumblr.com\/post\/90563605390\/day-one\">Pledges for a professional philosopher<\/a> (Carrie Jenkins)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/bpa.ac.uk\/uploads\/Good%20Practice%20Scheme\/Seminar%20chairing.pdf\">Seminar chairing policy suggestions<\/a> (British Philosophical Association)<\/a>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/index.php\/2014\/03\/28\/daniel-dennett-rapoport-rules-criticism\/\">How to criticize with kindness<\/a> (Daniel Dennett)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Any other suggestions? Comments are open, and you don&#8217;t have to wait to be called on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Chalmers is compiling a useful set of guidelines for respectful, constructive, and inclusive philosophical discussion. It makes sense to concentrate on a single field, like philosophy, since customs often vary wildly from one discipline to the other &#8212; but there&#8217;s really nothing specifically &#8220;philosophical&#8221; about the list, it could easily be adopted in just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12187,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12183\/revisions\/12187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}