A difficulty of pedagogy and philosophy

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Hey everyone, I hope the weekend is treating you guys well!

Today I would like to explore something that I noticed while working on my next book this past week, but first I will have to quickly discuss the method of research that I decided to use so that I may complete this year’s goals as an author/philosopher. After discussing the method that I have used, I will explain the phenomenon that I have noticed, as well as a few possible theories that I have that may help explain this new phenomenon, mostly with the goal of further refining my understanding of what is going on with my own understanding.

Firstly, in order to write my next book, I took a trip to Europe in the summer of 2018 to visit the graves of 24 different philosophers. These 24 philosophers have made some sort of impact on how I think, and I wanted to see where their lives ended and what kind of cultures could have surrounded them during the last few years of their lives (assuming that they were buried close to the last place where they lived). While traveling to 9 different countries, I kept a journal to keep track of my journey and the insights that I had while working in Europe. Before leaving for this trip, I also gathered philosophy articles that explored pedagogy, which is the art and science of teaching, and each philosopher’s own work, teaching style, and/or ideas around pedagogy.  However, once I started reading these articles, I noticed something that bothered me…

After reading a few academic articles for my own research in philosophy and pedagogy, what bothered me was that it was very apparent that I had almost no idea what each author was talking about in their articles (or at least that’s what it felt like), even after moving away from home to teach English, completing my formal training as a teacher, and teaching again before leaving for my trip. I noticed that while reading, I could not pull out central ideas from what I read, I could not vulgarise the content that was presented, nor could I create my own analogies and examples that could clarify the information that I was exploring. All that I could do while reading was notice essential questions found within each article.

I think that during times where I became uncomfortable due to a feeling of lack of understanding (whether it be in my studies of philosophy, education or investing), I become more aware of the limitations of my own abilities, since a similar situation has happened to me at least twice now; Once during my high school education and then again during my studies in university. Furthermore, I only started to understand the philosophy and education articles that I collected, AFTER returning from my trip to Europe and after teaching another semester. I think that this period of time where I could not understand the content in the articles that I was using for research, gave me more insights on how students can experience difficulty in understanding, but somehow later understand a subject, even if they were not reading on this subject. This makes me ask the following question: How is it possible to have trouble learning, leave the learning aside, to then be able to understand later? It seems that learning can benefit from a lack of conscious effort. Maybe this is what some educators mean when they say to “let what you just learned simmer in your mind”, after their students have just been presented with difficult content.

In conclusion, I know that as a philosopher and educator, there is much that I do not know and much more that I may never know. Now, I seem to have a lot less difficulty in reading the articles that I will be using for my research, so hopefully I can keep working towards making what I learn during his time in my life as accessible to others as possible. Maybe it is through struggling with what I am trying to accomplish, that I can offer value by guiding others so that they can avoid this feeling of confusion? Or maybe the opposite is needed, that I guide others right through the point of the most confusion?  

Until next time!

Have a great day!

-PJH 

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January 11th, 2019

Hey, I hope everyone is having a great day! Today I would like to talk to you guys about one of the goals that I have for this year, which is to write not just one book, but I intend to write and publish TWO books this year. In today’s post, I will quickly explore the general idea for each book, as well as my planned method for how I will be approaching this goal. I have written and published a book each year for the past 3 years, but this year I felt like seeing how much more I can accomplish, without necessary pushing myself too far, but to have an approach that this will be “easy” for me.

The first book that I will be writing this year will cover my philosophy tour when I left for Europe during the summer of 2018. This tour had a triple purpose: 1) to visit the graves of 24 philosophers and meditate on my own mortality as a philosopher, 2) to explore how these philosophers had an influence and different views in regard to Education and pedagogy and 3) to be a traveling philosopher and become more self-aware. For this 4th book, I had kept a journal that explored not only my ideas around mortality, pedagogy and my own Being, but also how each of the philosophers thought about these ideas. I will be using this journal written during my stay in Europe, coupled with research on each of the philosophers’ ideas around education.

The second book that I will be writing this year will be on the topic of Lucid dreaming. I am not certain if this will take on a more “How to” approach, or if I want to integrate this approach with some storytelling about my journey with Lucid dreaming. As for a method for how I will write this book, I will be doing a month or two of intensive immersion into lucid dreaming. In other words, I will be documenting every dream, lucid and not lucid, for those 2 months to gather data on my own dreams. I will then interpret these dreams as well as write about the process on how I became lucid in my dreams, in the hope that I will be able to show someone else the steps necessary so that they themselves can become proficient in lucid dreaming.

In conclusion, this year I will be attempting to write two books. To accomplish this, not only will I have to write very consistently, but I will also have to have a detailed game plan on how I will write and conduct my research so that I can accomplish these tasks. The first book to be written this year will cover my philosophy tour where I went to Europe to think, understand and question the Self, human mortality and pedagogy or the art and science of education. The second book to be written this year will explore lucid dreaming and how someone can become proficient in this skill, as well as a documentation of my own lucid dreams after putting myself through a period of immersion. I hope that by working on these two books, I will not only be able to offer some value to the world that I have been thrown into, but that I can also continue moving towards becoming more self-aware.

I hope you guys have a great day!

Talk soon!

-PJH

Ps: Follow me through social media if you like!
Instagram: @patrickjhilario
twitter: @PhiloDasein
facebook page: Dasein the Philosopher
Anchor FM podcast: Philosophy with Dasein
Youtube: Pj Hilario

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