fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Monday

Ender had gotten into the habit of teaching outside in any circumstance but all out rain (or frost, but that was unlikely in summer). He checked outside whether or not it would be tending towards the rumored storms any time soon, but having noted the all clear, he posted a note on his designated classroom's door pointing all the students towards the dorm lawn.

He sat down on the grass out there, legs folded. By his side was a bag full of sandwiches, just in case any student had missed breakfast. And there he waited, quiet and patient, until everyone had arrived.

"So I didn't bring any books, and I didn't make a reading list either," he said, once they had. "Because despite what the title of this class might imply, I'm not actually here to tell you about Hegel or Kant and what they were thinking. They might come up, but if they do, it's because they have had interesting ideas that might be useful to us."

He stretched his legs out. "I'm Andrew Wiggin, though some people call me Ender," he said, "And I don't bring books here because I don't think they have all that many answers. Neither do I, for that matter. I have, however, been gifted with a boundless supply of questions, and that's no terrible thing. You can keep asking questions as the situation changes - answers tend to be the same thing no matter when you check up on them."

He smiled wryly.

"This class is about questions," he said. "And it's about having a conversation through those questions. Everyone here has sat through something in their life that they feel the need to question - though whether they want to admit that is another thing entirely. We're here to talk about those questions as they come up. No more, no less."

He shot Cade a wry look. "That still means I expect all of you to participate," he said. "You don't have to share about yourself if you absolutely don't want to. If you don't want to talk about something, you're free to say so, and if you want to talk to me about it outside of class, that's fine too. But I expect you to talk along. If you don't, I'm not going to apologize for the kinds of questions I'll ask. While we're at it, I also won't tolerate shaming anyone in this class for any reason."

Having said that, though, Ender's mouth quirked up. "Enough with the threats," he said. "I don't believe in classic introductions - I think I know what most of your names are, and I'll learn the ones that I don't, and what year you're in is of absolutely no concern to me."

"Let's open a dialogue instead," he finished. "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."

He paused, then pointed towards one of the boys. "Sparkle is my teaching assistant, by the way," he said. "Feel free to test his propensity for questions. He's got his own brand."

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"Nice shot at making the rules work for you," Ender said.

He didn't sound judgey. He'd learned something about her, which was the point.

"Should I not have admitted that?" she asked him.

He was kinda creepy honestly.

Sorry about that...

"No, it's fine," Ender said. "Today's primarily about figuring out what personalities I've got in my class."

"I like how you say personalities instead of people," Karina noted, with a bit of a shudder.

"Surface personalities," Ender said. "There's a world of people we can go into later, if you want to. But you haven't given me the impression you particularly care for it. So 'personalities' fits the bill just fine in this conversation."

"Well, I just think that's kinda reductive," Karina said, shrugging again. "Like, maybe you don't care for my personality but I'm still me and maybe I don't care for yours but you're still you and I wouldn't try and deny you personhood or say you're a personality so, if that's not too much trouble, can you not do that to me?"

She gave that a second's thought. Was that too blunt? Maybe?

"Please?"

Well, there was a reaction that was, at least, not word-juggling or adolescent eye-rolling.

"I never made any particular judgment about your personality," Ender said. "Or denied you personhood - asserting that you have a personality that impacts the make-up of the group is not a denial of your personhood. However, you also came into a class about philosophy as applied to our daily lives, juggled your way around the subject matter, insulted me non-verbally, then passed off the discussions we have had and will have as 'touchy-feely stuff' not just to me but also to my TA, and in front of the entire class. So, when confronted with someone who wishes to engage my class shallowly, I respond with shallow language. And when you dismiss me, I step aside, ready to be dismissed."

He leaned back. "Unless I read this wrong, and you were not dismissing me, of course."

"It is touchy-feely stuff," Karina said, sitting on her temper firmly because shouting at the teacher because he was an asshole was probably a bad idea even in this class. "It's about feelings. That wasn't said as an insult. And I seriously doubt Sparkle took anything I said seriously because, oh hey, we know each other outside of class and get along. And maybe I misunderstood the course but I don't see how asking us a lot of questions and inviting open conversation is philosophy. It seems like an excuse to gather information which, yeah, I'm going to react shallowly to because, hey, that's not even remotely cool with me even with the illusion of choice you give us about it."

She raised her chin. "None of which is dismissing you. Questioning your aims though, yeah, I'll cop to that."

But hey, she'd resisted the urge to call him a creeper to his face so far!

Score one for tact!

And now they were actually talking about something that mattered, even if it was Ender's own goals. In its own way, that was success.

"Have you ever heard of Socrates?" he asked conversationally.

"A bit," she said, scrutinizing the seeming subject change dubiously. "He drank poison and died."

Maybe?

"He's considered to be one of the greatest and earliest Greek philosophers," Ender said. "Most of what we know of him comes from material written by his student, Plato. Socrates believed that philosophy stemmed from knowledge of one's self. Because you cannot know something else without knowing yourself, first, because otherwise you wouldn't even know who was knowing something."

He tilted his head. "And so Socrates took to the streets and posed questions to everyone he met. He challenged their answers. He felt that was the only way anyone involved could get to a deeper understanding of their self. Because it's only in your self that you can find these answers."

He sat up a little. "I don't pretend to be anywhere near Socrates' calibre," he said. "But I agree with his central thesis - that to know anything at all, you have to know yourself first. So I ask my questions, hoping someone, somehow, will gain a greater clue - or help me gain one of my own."

And at that one, he shrugged. "Otherwise, I have no interest or use in gathering information about you," he said. "I'm leaving at the end of this term and I don't intend to be back."

"And, see, if you'd said that first, we wouldn't even be having this conversation," she pointed out. "Because then I'd have a reason for your questions rather that a 'oh, by the way, if you don't like my questions too bad'."

Not that Karina would have liked the questions anyway but...

"You didn't ask," Ender said simply. "I had to provoke you to get the question that's really on your mind."

Yeah, he was so not winning points with her.

"Uh no, I did mean my original question. Just because it wasn't super personal doesn't mean it wasn't something I wanted to know."

Good thing this was a conversation and not a video game, then.

"Probably true," Ender agreed. "But out of all the options, you picked that specific question for a reason."

"Because it was a shallow question from a shallow mind?" she suggested.

"It was a shallow question," Ender said. "Chosen, as you said yourself, specifically because it offered nothing personal. Perhaps it's because you're privacy-minded. Perhaps you've got prior experiences that makes you suspicious of people like me. Perhaps you think of your personal 'touchy-feeling' parts as sacred and not for semi-public consumption."

He shrugged.

It was a combination of all of the above.

"I'd tell you," she said, "but I don't really feel like it."

She didn't like him enough.

"That's your prerogative," Ender said. "Have a sandwich, if you want."

There was only limited work he could do with what she didn't say.

"I'll pass," she said flatly.

Practical Philosophy, Monday

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