Lehrman American Studies Center

I have been arguing that economic logic focuses on teaching students to construct and evaluate truth and falsity in economic argumentation, while economic grammar focuses on vocabulary and identification. This should help an economics department and the individual instructor decide how to differentiate between Principles and Intermediate courses (see previous post) as well as between courses like Statistics and Econometrics. Most electives fall in the logic category (insofar as the grammatical groundwork has been laid in the Principles sequence).

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…Words made famous in the contemporary film, Old School, when Will Farrell's character takes on famous pundit, James Carville. While our students may not have an amnesiac moment of brilliance like Frank the Tank, they can be compelled into debate.

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I regularly assign works of literature in my political theory classes which has caused some of my colleagues in Political Science, Philosophy, and English to question me about what it is that I teach. The Political Scientists want to know what the "political" quality of the literature is while some of my colleagues in philosophy want to know why I use literature instead of more "philosophic" texts that emphasize reasoning and logic. My colleagues in English often think that I am distorting a text by "reading too much into it." In response to these queries I offer the following thoughts on the relationship between philosophy and literature.

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Perhaps "Economic Logic" strikes you as a scary pair of words. "Thinking like an economist" is the avowed goal of most economics programs (and of a best-selling economics textbook, Heyne, Boettke, and Prychitko 2005), which means both using the vocabulary correctly (as in "economic grammar"), learning to distinguish truth and falsity (as in "economic logic"), and learning to put together persuasive arguments (as in "economic rhetoric").

Then, at what point in the curriculum is economic logic taught? When should it not be taught? What should be the focus of the teacher, the take-away for the student?

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My students learn from Thucydides that Athens was most moderate when under the guiding hand of Pericles. He restrained their pleonexia while lifting them up when things went badly. But the strong leader died and failed to prepare Athens for his successor. Athens became less moderate as time goes on, and they saw their empire threatened even more. The Sicilian expedition ended in disaster, and the perennial anxieties of the Athenians that a single loss would knock out the supports of the Athenian empire came to fruition.

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Every fall I give the freshmen my "tough love" speech. I talk to them about my dream. A dream of a Christian school. A holy place, a temple for dissemination of knowledge about our Creator and His creation. Where teachers do not have to act like prison guards during exams. Where students understand that more sweat in training means less blood in battle. Where they come to learn to think in order to serve better their neighbors. Where the promise of a promotion, a higher grade, or a shinier sticker is not a necessary incentive for working hard. Where everyone is willing to go an extra mile not for public recognition but for the glory of God.

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There is no defense of the liberal arts without an adequate epistemology. What is the epistemology provided by the cultured defenders of non-servile arts?

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I don’t like Frank Lloyd Wright. There. I said it. My reasons are not just aesthetic (i.e., this brings to mind this, and this invokes this, or this), but also theoretical. Specifically, this belongs to this, and takes us down a road going away from this, which is where we should seriously think about dropping anchor, hitching our horses, or parking our bicycles.

The problem with publically expressing this dislike is that I live and teach in Wisconsin. In Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright is revered. …

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The readings for June 17 ("Thinking about Technology and Teaching") and June 19 ("Teaching the Millennial Generation") got me thinking about the proper role of technology in the classroom. Of course, many questions regarding teaching style refer further back to the fundamental goals of any given course. In the past I have asked myself: What will my students get out of this? What do I want them to learn? And how can I best facilitate that process?

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Just as teachers are slothful, students are bored. (a follow-up from part 1, the slothful teacher)

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