Philosophy

Learning Circles

Miles Horton of the Highlander Folkschool ran learning circles: a group of people simply tell their stories about some important matter. The Minnesota Folkschool, under the leadership of John Wallace and Lynn Englund, has adopted the same strategy. It seems almost too simple: why should people learn things from just hearing a bunch of stories in the same general area? At a recent May Term residential course, Mara Patton suggested on intriguing answer. People will naturally take different attitudes to roughly the same events: some people will be devastated by losing a job; others will take the loss as an opportunity to learn something new. And that will make clear to everyone that this is a matter on which different attitudes can be taken. Since pain and waste result when people feel trapped in one attitude, that's useful information.

We sometimes think that philosophy has to move forward, to generate new thoughts. But sometimes people learn by realizing the same thing, over and over again, with respect to different "material." Perhaps what is most needed is just for people to have the same thought, over and over, until it becomes second nature.