fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Friday

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practical philosophy

Practical Philosophy, Friday

Students arriving at the designated classroom would find a note resting on the door to come find Ender outside; the weather was good, and in a place like Fandom, Ender felt, whimsy played a big part of life. Why not teach class outside?

He was sitting outside by the treeline, a plastic bag full of sandwiches at his side.

He didn't begin to speak until everyone was there, though he'd waved one hand at the sandwiches to make it clear they were up for grabs.

"If you've come here for a lightning lecture on the dialogues of Plato or the nihilism of Nietzsche, or any other firm, philosophical field that gives some manner of answers," he started, "You're in the wrong place."

He shot the class a wry look. "I don't have any," he said. "I've got a great deal of data in my head, but no answers. And while the philosophers of yore might make for a good touchstone for our existence, I believe most things are too complicated to rely exclusively on the wisdom of our elders. Of course," he added, "I'm not an elder, so it's possible I might have something to gain from saying something like that."

"My name is Andrew Wiggin," Ender continued. "Some people call me Ender. I'm a graduating student; some of you have met me before, some of you I've passed in the halls, and some of you are new entirely."

He nodded towards his TA. "This is my teaching assistant, the lovely Tara Maclay," he said. "And I might have been lying earlier - we do have some answers and wisdom to offer in this class, but those are almost exclusively her domain." He flashed Tara a smile.

Then he turned back towards the class. "This class is about opening a dialogue," he said. "Partly because the island has a habit of pulling in people with interesting problems, problems worth talking about. And partly because I'm an inquisitive fool who likes to learn about human beings, and stupidly assumes other people do, too."

"Don't get me wrong, though. If you don't want to talk about yourself, don't. I'm perfectly happy to spend a class debating Hegel with you instead - though I do expect everyone to participate, no matter what the topic. If you have something to say, say it, and we'll judge between the lot of us whether it merits the conversation."

He stretched out, planting his hands behind him in the grass. "We won't be doing introductions today," he added. "I know it's the season for it, and I know there are good reasons to do it. To foster a sense of who everyone is, to start grafting the roles we're to take opposite one another, teacher to student and student to student, student to teacher. This might be a stupid call on my part; after all, I know some of your names only off the roll given to me."

"But I'd rather get to know you by what you find worth talking about," he continued, "than your name and a few stock answers. So we're just going to do as I intend to for the rest of this course: we're going to have a dialogue. We're going to talk. And we'll see where we wind up." He paused. "Though please remember this is a safe space, of a sort, and I won't hesitate to deal with anyone who decides to behave like a jackass."

He smiled again, mostly for the class's sake. "For some of you, this is all new. How is it working for you? Are you elated? Annoyed? Don't want to be here? Achingly happy to be here? And for those of you who aren't - how has the past year treated you? Has there been anything that made you cry or made you think or made you wonder?"

"We can talk about that. Or we can talk about something else. I'm open to talking about anything, as long as you think it's worth questioning. Because you can assume from here on in that I really don't know a thing; but maybe by educating me, you can find something worth educating yourself about."

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Ponderously!

Britta Perry

James of Krondor

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Nom on a sandwich!

[[ note that during long threads, ender may leap in to comment if he feels there's something to say. there'll be before class ocd starting next week to compensate ]]

Britta was already feeling like she'd learned her first lesson in this class. You see, when you go into work and your new boss who has the same last name as one of your teachers puts umbrellas on sale if you're in a certain class, then you kind of figure that you need an umbrella. So Britta had an umbrella, though it was becoming increasingly clear that an umbrella was not needed. She couldn't believe she'd be so foolish as to fall into the ploys of listening to the man.

It put a sour note to her mood at first, but, really, halfway through the lecture, she was distracted by the nice day and wasn't even really listening past a certain point.

Please, like Cassidy wasn't going to enroll in a class that Ender was teaching?

She got comfortable, enjoying the weather as she paid attention to what he was saying. So far, this reminded her a lot of the many conversations they'd had.

As Ender listed all the things this class was not, Sholeh couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. She didn't know a single name he'd spouted off. If he'd said that that what his class was about, she would have gotten quite flustered and intimidated.

Instead, though, he'd said the class was going to be about dialogue, at asking and answering questions. Sholeh wasn't too sure about how she'd do answering them, but asking? She was a pro at that.

...Though she did occasionally forget to listen to her fellow students in favor of looking around and enjoying the day.

No introductions. Just talking. Answer any of Ender's questions, if you want, or bring up something you feel is relevant. Or not.

[[ messy is the rule around here! ping off each other, ping off each other's threads, get a major discussion started, it's all open. ]]

Edited 2012-05-11 08:34 (UTC)

Britta did come back around after a moment, though, toward the end of the rambling lecture to catch the gist of what the conversation was supposed to be. She thought about it for a moment, listening to what the others had to say, thinking about what she had to say. She always had a lot to say, it was true, but she decided this was a time to choose her words wisely.

Besides, it was hard to pick just one rant out of the fifty million that were buzzing through her head at all times. For today, she decided to keep it simple in response to the whole being here aspect of it.

"School is bullshit," she said. "The things you learn in a classroom are only useful if you wind up either going to more classrooms or joining the mindless masses in the corporate rat race they've invented. It's all brainwashing. Even this. If I wanted to sit outside and talk about things, I'd go to southern California and do it. At least then there'd be weed."

And bangable smelly hippies.

"So you'd say there was absolutely nothing you've ever been taught in a classroom that had any merit whatsoever?" Ender asked.

His non-judgmental face was epic. It needed to be; he already thought she was very, very foolish.

"It's all indoctrination," he said, "Meant to pry you away from a state of-- what, exactly?"

Sign In

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Talk.

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OOC

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