On Assisting Discoveries: A billet-doux to the keen inquirer…

by Bogdan Lepadatu

Rumour has it (Adele, bless her voice, such an inspirational leitmotif for a class on reported speech!) that you may be looking for an experienced teacher to train your trainers, your staff or your students. In case you're one such forward-looking creator of (intellectual) wealth, either as a leader, manager or parent even, then you might wish to know a little more about my offer...

Who am I? Was I born on the 4^th of July, I can almost hear you wondering? Well, my name is Bogdan, I'm a British subject and a Romanian born, European citizen, too. I was born on the 12^th of April, five years after the first human, the Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, flew into outer space. A hundred years earlier, on this very same day, the American Civil War had been started as the Confederate forces started firing on Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbour, in South Carolina.

Another notable if merely coincidental landmark as regards scientific endeavours and principled actions in history has to be the declaration of Dr. Jonas Salk's polio vaccine as safe and effective. Though hardly looking to draw meaningful inferences from such coincidences, I could be upping the ante by adding the fact that I also share a date of birth with Herbie Hancock, the great jazz pianist, as well as with David Letterman and Andy Garcia.

∞

All of the above merely aimed to emphasize the fact that normative statements, inferred or deduced by way of overstating their respective meanings serve to shape the formative context of all (meta-) narratives. This is the reason why philosophers, such as Ayre or Mackie have argued (for different reasons and in different ways) against inferring meaningfulness out of normative statements. Their quest was to find sources of normative value that were independent of any individual, subjective morality on the way to finding an intrinsic value that may offer a greater degree of objectivity when appraised.

By now, you will have noticed that my talking about the date of my birth had been but a ruse designed to introduce such keen enquirers (opportunistic head-hunters included here, too!) to the international academic and professional experience that shaped my philosophical approach to the teaching and training of students, educators and/or fellow trainers. 

Moreover, by asking - well, answering too - such hypothetical, rhetorical 'questions' I was merely hinting at the Socratic method of teaching, according to which the conversation will always be the focal point of the learning process. This evergreen dialectical method of asking and answering questions is designed to stimulate critical thinking by stirring up debate in defense of a particular view point.

Yet, this rather lyrical (beyond the promises implied in the title) business card-type alternative (to the cold-calls shaped as professional-résumés) is also designed to hint at the host of normative (yes, I know☺!) theories of education informing the instructional practice which I’m proposing here.

Despite the apparent contradiction, my philosophical perspective on the above is quite clear if admittedly somewhat complex. Though it may seem to be but a case of wanting to have your cake and eating it too, in truth, beyond the basic (epistemological) acceptance of logical cognitive contents, it's all to do with Nagel's View from Nowhere, where both objective as well as subjective world perspectives can be integrated successfully.

To use an epistemological distinction for the purpose of qualifying the metaphor which I’m about to use, I have been tasked with assisting people judge and discern or, in other words, getting them to keep abreast of the barrage of empty signifiers which is feeding the current paradigm's Permanent War on Nouns (from Poverty or Drugs to Cancer, Childhood Obesity or the ill-defined Terror even). 

In this day and Age of Ghost-modern, radicalized, reflexive, fast or liquid meaninglessness even...

... a teacher's duty is to facilitate their students' quest for autonomy and emancipation through a critical appraisal of formalised theories and conventions.

The air that we breathe is as important as the knowledge we share – that food-for-though which ought to be informing our quest for autonomy and emancipation. We forget at our own peril the fact that we stop living the minute that we stop learning. Hence the reason why an educator’s duty is to never cease learning if he or she aims to continue facilitating the acquisition of information.

To paraphrase Henry Giroux, an educator ought to be guided by passion and principle in helping others develop a consciousness of freedom to inform their thinking (and speaking) against the supposedly authoritarian tendencies that may be preventing their emancipation, both moral and intellectual.

Consequently, pedagogy and, in particular, critical pedagogy are but variants of the continuous process of ‘unlearning’ (the things that have been rendered obsolete since the good old days of ‘traditional schooling’), of ‘learning’ new things (as in the Age-of-Information-new things), ‘relearning’ (as in the ubiquitous ‘continuous education’ process) and, of course, (critical) ‘reflection’ and ‘evaluation’.

The teacher-trainer today can (and even has the duty to) be a social pedagogue, a provider of progressive education, a viable and preferable alternative to the test-based instruction as legislated by the ‘No Child Left Behind’ Act or the supposedly 'streamlined' educational aims of the Bologna Process – both of whom, incidentally, appear to be more akin to programming people to becoming highly ‘mobile’ human resources, rather than highly moral human beings.

Rather, truly inspirational educator-tutors ought to take it upon themselves to assist the nurturing of such developing human beings into open-minded (giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, as far as multicultural values and traditions go) and knowledgeable inquirers (attempting the mastery of as broad a range of disciplines as it is possible), into critical and creative thinkers, into articulate, multilingual communicators, into brave-hearted yet caring social actors (showing empathy, compassion and respect for others and for the environment), into physically and emotionally-balanced persons, and last... but not by any stretch of the imagination least, such educators ought to be tasked with turning these fledgling leaders into reflective (i.e. learning through their accumulated experience without ever losing track of their limitations) and principled individuals (having their actions informed by a solid set of ethical values with particular respect to integrity, honesty, fairness and justice).

Amsterdam Declaration 2002

In 1952, at the first World Humanist Congress, the founding fathers of IHEU agreed a statement of the fundamental principles of modern Humanism. They called it "The Amsterdam Declaration". That declaration was a child of its time: set in the world of great power politics and the Cold War.

The 50th anniversary World Humanist Congress in 2002, again meeting in the Netherlands, unanimously passed a resolution updating that declaration: "The Amsterdam Declaration 2002". Following the Congress, this updated declaration was adopted unanimously by the IHEU General Assembly, and thus became the official defining statement of World Humanism.

Amsterdam Declaration 2002

Humanism is the outcome of a long tradition of free thought that has inspired many of the world's great thinkers and creative artists and gave rise to science itself.

The fundamentals of modern Humanism are as follows:

1. Humanism is ethical. It affirms the worth, dignity and autonomy of the individual and the right of every human being to the greatest possible freedom compatible with the rights of others. Humanists have a duty of care to all of humanity including future generations. Humanists believe that morality is an intrinsic part of human nature based on understanding and a concern for others, needing no external sanction.
2. Humanism is rational. It seeks to use science creatively, not destructively. Humanists believe that the solutions to the world's problems lie in human thought and action rather than divine intervention. Humanism advocates the application of the methods of science and free inquiry to the problems of human welfare. But Humanists also believe that the application of science and technology must be tempered by human values. Science gives us the means but human values must propose the ends.
3. Humanism supports democracy and human rights. Humanism aims at the fullest possible development of every human being. It holds that democracy and human development are matters of right. The principles of democracy and human rights can be applied to many human relationships and are not restricted to methods of government.
4. Humanism insists that personal liberty must be combined with social responsibility. Humanism ventures to build a world on the idea of the free person responsible to society, and recognises our dependence on and responsibility for the natural world. Humanism is undogmatic, imposing no creed upon its adherents. It is thus committed to education free from indoctrination.
5. Humanism is a response to the widespread demand for an alternative to dogmatic religion. The world's major religions claim to be based on revelations fixed for all time, and many seek to impose their world-views on all of humanity. Humanism recognises that reliable knowledge of the world and ourselves arises through a continuing process. of observation, evaluation and revision.
6. Humanism values artistic creativity and imagination and recognises the transforming power of art. Humanism affirms the importance of literature, music, and the visual and performing arts for personal development and fulfilment.
7. Humanism is a lifestance aiming at the maximum possible fulfilment through the cultivation of ethical and creative living and offers an ethical and rational means of addressing the challenges of our times. Humanism can be a way of life for everyone everywhere.

Our primary task is to make human beings aware in the simplest terms of what Humanism can mean to them and what it commits them to. By utilising free inquiry, the power of science and creative imagination for the furtherance of peace and in the service of compassion, we have confidence that we have the means to solve the problems that confront us all. We call upon all who share this conviction to associate themselves with us in this endeavour.

IHEU Congress 2002.

●

Having embarked on a new challenge in my professional career, I thought of adding here a few things about the new and exciting additions to the IB Diploma Programme curricula, in the shape of the four elective courses that I'm currently teaching over in Bucharest, this year.

Yet, before mentioning a few details about the nature of these courses, I will submit for your consideration four good reasons why any of the real beneficiaries should want to join my classes this year:

I. These courses are a common feature in international higher educational settings where they are already being used as a means of assessment.

II. Their introduction on an optional basis this year means that, during this trial period, signing up to them will bring you extra credits, without incurring the dreaded penalties associated with the assessment of one's progress on the course!

III. Further to that, my current status as Cambridge English Language Teacher Associate  means that I am only being tasked with assisting your progress (without this being accompanied by a formal need to assess that progress too rigorously!)

IV. Finally, this gentlest of introductions into the IB curricula’s next dimension gives the keenest inquirers a dry run before the actual race begins in earnest next year, and a clear advantage over the rest of their peer pack in setting a much better time for the forthcoming race to pole position.

In the interest of fairness and not wishing to downplay potential drawbacks, here are four possible reasons why you might not be so keen to join my courses this year:

I. You may remember my speaking earlier about the continuous process of ‘unlearning’ (those things that have been rendered obsolete since the good old days of ‘traditional schooling’). This may be the toughest assignment for you for unlearning the things we have been taking for granted may prove to be the most difficult thing ever.

II. You may be inclined to conform to a rather shallow model of 'coolness', which scoffs at all academic pursuits, in particular, reading and writing.

III. You are well advised to note the idiomatic saying according to which 'it takes two to tango'! What this means is that while I will do my utmost by way of assisting your own discoveries, it would be wrong to read into that I will perform miracles. One's results are usually proportionate to the effort they are willing to put in. 

IV. Finally, there may come a point (usually towards the end of the academic year!) when the going gets tough at which point only the tough get going... 

The first of these four courses is:

1.    On Public Speaking/Oratory

Course title: The Speakers’ Corner 

The Speakers’ Corner Workshop is designed to encourage young people to share their ideas with other people rather than getting them to make speeches.

Talking to a room full of people is always going to be nerve-racking. Getting out there to speak, knowing that you are being observed and analysed closely – which is only natural, considering you're the focus of attention – is not something designed to make you feel comfortable.

“I have a dream”, said Martin Luther King Junior, half a century ago. Alas, his dream helped open people’s minds and galvanise millions to change America.

I, too, have a dream and, this time, it is a lucid dream allowing me to contemplate the future of the developing human beings to whom I am speaking to, allowing me to anticipate the way in which their fledgling personalities seem likely to evolve towards becoming fully fledged social actors, leading by example not just their peers but their communities, too. 

For this dream to materialize there is a need to enrich the expertise and knowledge of developing social actors with the rhetorical skills needed to turn them into effective practitioners of the art of oratory.

Getting people to master the art of oratory is about helping them become seasoned public speakers by working to cultivate their inner abilities to the point where such abilities appear as a seemingly innate 'gift' to inspire audiences; it is as much about personal charisma as it is about adopting the variable geometry that fighter planes are designed with and translating it into an ability to adapt and adjust to the ever-changing set of conditions; it is about finding, in real time, inspired solutions to intractable situations; it is about giving the people in those audiences a reason to cast aside their own thoughts and opinions on the particular topic they are being lectured on in favour of the speaker's own chain of thought; alas, it is about reinforcing what a partisan audience had been expecting to hear as much as it is about persuading a non-partisan crowd, either with solid arguments or, more often than not, with the rhetorical devices supporting the aims of their speech.

There can hardly be a more immediate example in this respect other than the one involving the daily negotiations with the Chief Financial Officers in every household over their members' next flight of fancy, suddenly turning into a must-have without which life itself seems to be losing all of its meaning…

Getting people to adhere to or at least acquiesce to the rhetorical devices employed to support a particular point of view is the mark of a good orator. While it will always be preferable to be controversial rather than bore your audience to death, this course will strengthen your self-belief in the outcomes of your speeches. Soon enough, you will begin to realise that there are always going to be people in your audience saying ‘I’m so glad you said that; I thought I was the only person believing it’, while others will be left wondering ‘Indeed so, I never realised that before.’

There is one last aspect you ought to consider in relation to this particular Workshop. For all the international students out there that are planning to take an undergraduate course at a British or an English-speaking university in the not-so-distant future, The Speakers’ Corner Workshop is an integral part of the overall goal of using English for Academic Purposes.

In helping students master the art of oratory, their weekly tasks will be informed by a Content Language-Integrated Learning (CLIL) methodology, according to which a host of grammatical practices will be exercised: beginning with a general reviewing of the tenses, getting to use connectors when expressing reasons and/or results, contrasting or adding emphasis, or when using cohesive devices to enable a clear presentation of complex arguments, for instance.

*

The more people such an orator is beginning to inspire, the bigger the need to know more about the issues which matter to those you aim to inspire and the world as a whole.

Surely, seeking the means by which to alleviate world poverty and hunger has to be one of the most meaningful aims. Lest one considers the $1 million incentive being offered by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the eventual winner. Hence the relevance of the next available course:

2.  On Global Politics (which, incidentally, is a preparatory course for the IB Diploma course)

Course title: Global Issues

In line with the rest of the elective courses available now, the overall scope for this course is to get the student-trainees practising intensive Academic English language for the purpose of acquiring a solid framework for language, concepts and learning strategies.

This framework will use as content the social, political or environmental issues that are affecting us all. There is a number of existential threats to our public liberties, the worst being, according to James Madison, that posed by war. This most dreaded threat to public liberty will be examined in light of Systems of Universal Peace, by looking at the works of Erasmus, Penn, Abbé de Saint-Pierre, Bentham or Kant.

Other existential threats to people’s well-being, such as Racism or the debasing of their Human Rights, Climate Change, Global Warming and Global Dimming, the Loss of biodiversity or Climate Justice and Equity will also be debated and examined so as to find alternative sources of energy to mitigate the devastating effects of climate change.

This course will focus on a host of issues ranging from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to cyanide mining (Rosia Montana) when presenting an argument, organising your writing, making presentations, describing your research methods, classifying, describing problems and situations, processes and procedures, evaluating and emphasising before summarising and concluding your work.

Course work, essays and/or public speaking interventions will count as continuous assessment.

3.    On Creative Writing (English for Academic Purposes)

Course title: The Fictional Artists’ Workshop

The Fictional Artists’ Workshop is another academic incubator where would-be Fictional Artists are being proactively encouraged to let their creative impulses run loose… without too much of a noose.

This Workshop too is a must for all international students planning to take an undergraduate course at a British or English-speaking university. For those of you thinking that the artistic streaks in your personalities are lagging behind your strongest points, then I’ll invite you to think again for there is always more than meets the eye in each and every one of us.

This course is not about turning you into the next J.K. Rowling or Lewis Carroll even; it is about getting you to look at some of the aspects of your personality you may deem less important. It is about helping you find your place within another place, as if this were a translucent cube of sea water within a sea of translucent cubes, each one of them filled by snapshots of lucid dreaming, a place where the self-conscious personal Argus melds into the collective unconscious...

Not wishing to sound overly dramatic, poetic or even philosophical about it, this course will ultimately strengthen your confidence in your own abilities. Still, every would-be, Fictional Artist out there, including here Fictional Art Dealers and/or Investors who would be willing to join our club should note that there is a clearly defined Content (Academic) Language-Integrated Learning (CLIL) aspect to our group’s meetings, where every last drop of creative zest will be ‘sponged’ off and harnessed most efficiently, in pleasant yet highly effective and engaging ways.

As to the actual proceedings of our workshop, Fictional Artists will be invited to take notes with a view to their being compiled and edited in three-to-four paragraphs’-long pieces of lyrical prose, poetry or short essays. Such writing tasks will be informed by cloze readings and discussions on a selection of literary works of art deriving from a multicultural set of genres, ranging from short stories and novels to fairy tales and poetry.

Moreover, these tasks will be informed by a general reviewing of tenses, comparing and contrasting matters, using formal and informal registers, relative clauses, stating facts and opinions or using connectors and defining language, to name but some of the grammatical practices designed to serve the students’ academic purposes.

The academic context for this creative work will rest with identifying and experimenting with different aspects of a writer’s craft thus enabling the user to develop an awareness of the narrative and poetic structures in use. The resulting work will be submitted for critical consideration by the instructor and by other members of the class. By the end of the course, each student will have produced a collection of poems and pieces of short fiction.

The poet laureate and the best fictional writers in the group will be awarded Diplomas; furthermore, they will be given the possibility of having their works published by one of the leading publishing houses in Romania.

4.    University Counselling & Application Services

Course title: pre-Orientation Day

This course will give you a most realistic account of what it will be like being a Higher Education student in a British or English-speaking environment.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, in particular, adulthood begins once you leave your family home to go to University. From now on, pal, you’re on your own, and your family visits are generally expected to occur far fewer times than there are Red Letter Days in the calendar (or even ‘scarlet days’, at some of the more prestigious UK Universities!).

If you’re dreading that particular moment occurring in the not-so-distant future, well, think again how difficult this may be for your parents. [Speaking of which, sound advice on how to cope best once their children leave home will be given to parents planning to send their offspring to such academic environments!]

The course will provide intensive Academic English language training as content for a comprehensive overview of the available academic offer, the application/interviewing process and the Universities’ expectations in terms of course work, research and the tutorial support available to that end.

Other than intensive training with regards to working with academic vocabulary, using word combinations (of the nouns and the adjectives, of the verbs and the words they combine with, on prepositional phrases and fixed expressions, with the ways in which a student is expected to talk about sources, facts, evidence, data, numbers, statistics, graphs or diagrams, about causes and effects, about how to express opinions and ideas, reporting what others say, talking about points of view or degrees of certainty and much more) you will become familiarised with the application system and the application forms, with the UK college and university system compared to that in the US, with the academic courses and the available academic support & assistance networks to avoid potential pitfalls in what constitutes effective and acceptable methods of peer-to-peer and student-to-faculty communication.

Moreover, this course will explore key motivational strategies designed to maximize the effectiveness of study. It will provide students with the tools needed to identify their own optimal learning styles and strategies while training effective habits and patterns of academic study with a view to promoting learner autonomy and self-reflective strategies as tried, tested & trusted recipes for success.

☺

That said, I wish you good luck with your deliberations and I look forward to seeing you in my class!