DAILY NOUS -- Yann Benétreau-Dupin, a lecturer in Philosophy at San Francisco State University, writes about an interesting and innovative response to the California State University system’s change to its general education requirements: a course on math and the arts, taught in the Philosophy Department.
“Last semester’s results are encouraging: it is possible for a philosophy department to offer an original non-remedial, general education math/quantitative reasoning course without prerequisite on content that non-majors will find more palatable than that offered in a traditional math course,” Benétreau-Dupin writes. “Because this class’ content can be covered with minimal (high-school level) mathematics background knowledge, this can be viewed as an encouraging experiment in STEAM education in which philosophers can partake. Because the pedagogical approach was mostly problem-based and inquiry-based, with Socratic questioning instead of lecturing (or as a student called it, “going over all the wrong answers before getting the right one”), I am confident that this sort of courses can find a home in other philosophy departments, albeit not without much preparation.”