In the spring of 2023, the Ethics and Social Justice Center at Bellarmine University issued a call for proposals for their yearly Commonwealth Ethics Lecture. They invited scholars from around the state to propose a talk to be delivered for their 2023 lecture, considering approaches from all disciplines and with special interest in interdisciplinary dialogue and topics, encouraging “critical reflection, dialogue, and constructive action on contemporary ethical issues in society.” They also welcomed proposals “related to politics, societal well-being, and individual happiness,” as well as that “intersect these themes with regional issues.”

I pitched my proposal in relation to the fact that Kentucky is a state that continues to permit and make use of corporal punishment in public schools. I have long thought about corporal punishment especially as an example of a practice long outmoded and for which evidence has become increasingly clear that better alternatives are available and that long-term effects of the practice are psychologically and medically discouraged. Given this opportunity, it was a great chance for me to focus on corporal punishment directly, so I jumped at the chance finally to focus extensively on this topic.

Kentucky has decreased the use of the form of discipline in public schools to nearly negligible levels, with 17 recorded instances of corporal punishment in the 2020-2021 school year, which suggests that the practice would not be difficult to end at the state level. Given that, Kentucky could serve as a leader among states that presently permit and engage in the practice, to show how others can follow the lead of the Commonwealth state of Kentucky, to end the practice around the country. The video here above is 1hr and 1 min long, concluding at the end of my talk, not including the question and answer session, though that was fun and rewarding for me also.

I am especially grateful to Dr. Kate Johnson for being a welcoming and great host at Bellarmine University for the talk. The attendance and recording of the talk were great and much appreciated.

The PowerPoint slides for my talk are available online here.

It takes a village. Raising children takes all hands on deck, including parents or guardians, teachers, administrators, and educational policymakers. This paper examines common philosophical norms relevant to each of these groups. The norms include the idea of wanting a better future for our children than we had; the idea that human beings are rational animals; and that the unexamined life is not worth living. What does that mean for parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers when our children are intellectually or communicatively impaired?

WARNING: At least for me, rereading this paper inspired an emotional response. The stoicism called for in the paper is intended to help ease emotional reactions, but the fact of such a need for some readers (and others have let me know that they have shared such a reaction) is itself worth noting in advance.

Download the paper here.

We think of the norms I have mentioned as cultural. Philosopher John Dewey saw philosophy as the critique of culture, essentially as thinking about thinking. How we think plays a powerful role in how we treat people and how we educate ourselves and others. In this context, this paper examines one of the difficult contexts for education and the raising of children. And, I offer my own and my family’s experience for consideration, bringing philosophical ideas to bear on tough moments, decisions, and questions.

I first presented a draft of this essay at the annual meeting of the eastern division of the American Philosophical Association in January of 2019. It has just now been published in Disability and American Philosophies, edited by Nate Whelan-Jackson and Daniel J. Brunson in January of 2022 with Routledge Press of London.

It may be worth noting that in 2019 I was still married, something no longer true now, in 2022, when the essay has finally been released in print.

I agreed to publish this article with the understanding that I would have permission to share the essay in this way. You can download a copy of the essay in PDF format here or by clicking on the Adobe image above in this post.

Last, but not least, I have generated a computer-created text-to-speech recording of the essay. If I had more time, I would record myself reading the essay. The following recording took me only a few minutes to generate, by contrast to over an hour or more of work to record it myself. For the sake of accessibility, and at a friend’s request, I generated this audio file, which can be listed to if that is preferred over reading the text. I did not include the notes or bibliography section in the audio file.

Citation:  Weber, Eric Thomas, “Stoic Pragmatism for Parenting a Child with Disabilities: An Essay Addressing Philosophers, Parents, Teachers, and Educational Policymakers,” Chapter 11 in Disability and American Philosophies, Edited by Nate Whelan-Jackson and Daniel J. Brunson (London: Routledge, 2022), 182-198.

In short, I use the “Read Aloud” function in MS Word most. I love it. The reader can be found under the “Review” tab. The text it reads is highlighted as it moves along. You can easily start, pause, or stop it. You can speed it up, slow it down, or change the voice. You can listen quickly to things you need to skim, and then slow it down for passages that you need to attend to carefully. It’s my favorite and is amazing.

Next, I use Adobe PDF’s reading function under “View” (which is funny, right?), then “Read Out Loud,” then “Activate Read Out Loud,” and then choose the length you want read to you. It’s clunkier and less easily manipulable a function in Adobe, but it works and I use it too. I prefer MS Word’s greater functionality, so when I can, I save PDFs as Word files to have them read to me. One thing to note is that not all PDF files are prepared for text-to-speech, such as when someone embeds text in a photo, without leaving it readable. You can often have Adobe scan & OCR the text (optical character recognition), but not always.

Finally, I talk about @Voice, the program on my Android phone that is amazing, allowing me to listen to text on the go. I listen while walking, exercising, doing chores, or driving. It’s amazing. From a long email, I can select the text and click “share,” or I can share files from Word, Adobe, or text from Web sites. That article I’ve been meaning to read, I share to my phone and listen to it on the drive home. It’s amazing and I love it.

Most of all, I love listening to text when I’m editing or reviewing work in MS Word files. It’s a game changer for me, not only because I don’t have to stare at the screen, but also because I love to listen. It’s for me a preferred way to take in the material.

Bonus for people reading this page: I didn’t put this in the video, but I also use Read Aloud for Chrome, to have my laptop read passages from Web sites to me. It’s not as powerful and smooth as Word, but it’s better than having to copy and paste material for just short passages.

Try some of these tools out. Also, notice that the resources we develop for persons with disabilities empower us all. That’s a vital message we should keep in mind, especially when unfeeling people undervalue all the amazing people around the world with disabilities. We should make our world accessible to all, and when we do, we’ll all benefit.

Graduate students and advanced undergraduates at the University of Kentucky, watch this VIDEO (4m29s) about why you should take my EPE 525 / 640 course in the fall of 2020 on the Philosophy of Education. The EPE 525 course is the undergraduate version of the EPE 640 class, which is for graduate students, and both meet at the same time and in the same room.

Why study the Philosophy of Education?

a) Educators and leaders are expected to have a meaningful grasp of their own philosophies of education;

b) All research is rooted in frameworks of ideas that support and contextualize our work and thought, and that can clarify and help us to focus or be conflicted and confuse us if not carefully considered;

c) Everyone working in educational administration contributes to a system that functions with respect to or in conflict with underlying philosophical ideas. That calls for appreciating and always keeping in mind what we ought to be doing in education.

What you’ll get out of it / create:

Photo Credit: Jacob Slaton

1) A short “teaching statement,” “Statement on Educational Philosophy,” or related document commonly requested in academic job applications, as well as for administrative positions that often involve teaching courses or otherwise supporting them;

2) A book review for possible publication (optional route for students’ presentation);

3) A conference-length paper ready for submission to professional calls for papers;

4) A full-length research paper suitable for submission to journals and that could support your other projects;

John Dewey, concerned that you’re not yet signed up for the course.

5) An op-ed-length version of the research paper for possible submission to newspapers or educational periodicals (optional);

6) Credits that can contribute to the Graduate Certificate in College Teaching and Learning.

When & Where?

It’ll be on Mondays from 4-6:30pm in Dickey Hall rm 127. It is possible that we may start the semester with online meetings via Zoom, but details on such arrangements are yet to be determined. Decisions will follow the University of Kentucky’s guidelines for the sake of safety in the midst or wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Former Students’ Success

In Fall 2019, 3 of 6 grad students in my EPE 640 class submitted their papers to conferences and had them accepted for presentation. They included: Joseph Barry and Josh Smith presented their papers at the 2020 Southeastern Philosophy of Education Society conference at the University of Georgia in February 2020. Also, Samer Jan had his paper accepted for presentation at the 2020 conference of the Society for Philosophy in the Contemporary World. Josh Smith also will be publishing his book review of Teaching In the Now by Jeff Frank in Columbia University’s Teachers College Record. The photo on right features Weber with two students from his Spring 2019 Ethics and Educational Decision Making course, Andrew Nelson and Maria Richie, whose papers from that class were accepted for presentation at the 2019 Midwest Educational Research Association conference. 

Questions? Email me at eric.t.weber@uky.edu. You can also connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Academia.edu.

Why study Ethics and Educational Decision Making?

1. Ethics is essential for leadership in the educational policy context;
2. The course fulfills an elective requirement for the Graduate Certificate in College Teaching and Learning;
3. The course includes options for customizing assignments for conference and journal submissions;
4. Two students from last semester had their papers accepted for presentation at the 2019 Midwest Educational Research Association conference;
5. It’s really fun.

Here’s a flyer for the course, and here’s a short bio about the instructor:

Dr. Eric Thomas Weber is Associate Professor of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation. He also serves as Executive Director of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) and co-host of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, and is the author of Uniting Mississippi and Democracy and Leadership.

Consider joining the class or sharing this post with your networks! 

The next trip I’m taking will be next week, when I’ll be heading to give three talks at Texas State University San Marcos. I’ll be talking at the local library about “Democracy and Public Philosophy,” from 4:30-6pm on Wednesday, March 13th. Then, on Thursday, March 14th, I’ll be talking about “Culture and Self Respect” from 2-3:00pm in the Alkek 250 Theater on campus. Friday morning, March 15th from 9-10am I’ll be talking about “Democracy and Leadership”  in PS3301. More on that as it develops, but it is coming soon.

I wasn’t there today to talk about social media, though. Instead, I spoke mainly about my 2013 book, Democracy and Leadership, and showed what I think we still have to learn from Plato, even if it needs updating for the modern and democratic era. I find a lot of value in reminding myself of what Plato’s Socrates says in the first book of the Republic. There, Socrates says that good people won’t be willing to lead. They’d rather others do it. But, some compulsion weighs on good people, inspiring them to be leaders against their inclinations. That compulsion is the fact, in his way of thinking, that worse people will lead. In the democratic era, the language of good people and bad people generally rings as unpleasant at best. My translation for democracy is to say that the compulsion could be instead that good people care about problems, injustices, that could be ameliorated with effort. Good people don’t want to be at the top for its own sake, but accept positions of responsibility because of what would happen if other people would not stand up to address key problems.

Socrates.

After that, I explained how and why I think it’s important that we continue to learn about leadership from Plato, even while we disagree with and let go of his authoritarian outlook. In other words, how he characterizes the virtues of leadership is problematic, but there’s no doubt that wisdom is important for leadership, for example, including in the democratic era. It just needs to be understood, pursued, and embodied democratically. So, I talked about what I take that to mean in many contexts of leadership today, but focusing on prime challenges for grad students. After all, good people will need compulsion in grad school too. Leadership is generally thankless, or worse. Plus, it takes a great deal of time and effort, which generally means a distraction from one’s other work. As such, engaging in leadership efforts as a grad student may well mean taking longer to finish one’s program. That’s something serious to accept. To want to lead despite that may well take some compulsion. Even if it does, however, grad student leaders would be wisest if they engage in democratic practices, acknowledging the dangers, challenges, and harms that can come from leading. They should also beware not to carry the world on their shoulders, as time is short, even at its longest, in graduate school (or we generally want it to be), and colleges and universities are slow-moving, relatively conservative institutions. So, at best one can make incremental change and pass on to the next group of leaders their chance to make a further difference.

As such, leadership in the grad school context should stay humble and stoic about what’s possible, want to lead for the right reasons, and be award of the costs, challenges, and reasons not to lead, all while going after it anyway in those cases that truly call for such a sacrifice.

————–

P.S. Of course there was more detail in the talk, but this is the gist of what I had to say this morning, and the people in attendance seemed to appreciate thinking through these matters with me, raising some very thoughtful and valuable questions. My thanks go out to James William Lincoln and the Graduate Student Congress for the invitation.

This spring has been BUSY. In Moving to Lexington, KY, I decided that among my key aims would be to dive deeper into the waters of public philosophy, public intellectual engagement. So far, a number of related activities have kept me busier than I could have imagined. They’ve also been hugely rewarding.

Organizationally, I’ve been working a great deal on projects for and leadership of The Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA, on Twitter & Facebook). Last fall, we held an online video symposium on “Trigger Warnings,” which was a lot of fun, and we need to hold more of them. We haven’t gotten back to that yet, but we need to, I think. We should probably think of that kind of work as a program, one with a name, and that should happen with some frequency, as well as an officer leading the charge for how and when we’ll hold the next one. We’ve certainly learned a great deal about the need for and steps for better audio quality in recording such events. The next one will be better and we’ll keep on growing our archive of material and gatherings.

In work for SOPHIA, we’ve also returned to a project I started in 2015, which was my Philosophy Bakes Bread podcast. Instead of it being solo and only a podcast, we’ve welcomed Dr. Anthony Cashio of the University of Virginia’s College at Wise as a co-host on the show, which is now centered on interviews about how and why philosophy matters in real life and leadership. We’ve been very fortunate to get a spot on WRFL Lexington, 88.1 FM. The program is now a weekly radio talk show and then a podcast after that, the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast (on Twitter and Facebook too). We started in January of 2017 and have been very busy ever since. The podcast, when I worked on it alone, only came to 4 episodes in 18 months. Since committing to the weekly radio show, we’ve aired 32 episodes, 27 hour-long programs and 5 short “breadcrumb” episodes. It has been considerably more work than I could have imagined, but it’s also been a great deal of fun. More importantly, it’s been some of the most engaging public philosophical work I’ve done to date. We’ve got listeners in 67 countries and the show has been downloaded over 9,000 times to date. We’re excited about approaching the early milestone of 10K downloads, which we hope to see happen in the next 10-14 days, or less, as far as our present trends appear to be going. That’s super exciting.

We also have a logo for the show now, that isn’t just my lame effort to put a text over an image in Photoshop… We’re finally getting around to putting the word out in efforts beyond social media posts. We’re WAY overdue on a few requests for interviews. To give you a sense of why, for each episode, we need to: 1) think about who’ll be on, 2) invite the person(s) on the show, giving info about what we do, how, etc., 3) schedule the interview, 4) meet to prep to give the interview, 5) meet and record the interview, 6) edit the interview for airing as an episode, 7) go to the station and air the episode, 8) announce the show on social media before and as it’s airing, 9) get the files after airing from the station and perform final mastering on them, 10) prepare language, images, and social media posts to accompany the podcast episode release, 11) post the show and announcements on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus, then 12) secure and make final tweaks to transcripts of the show that the great Drake Boling, UKY Philosophy undegraduate student, has been doing for us, and finally, 13) post the transcript on our site, as a PDF, and on Academia.edu. Ok, now do that 31 more times… to date (no, we’re not up to date yet with all the transcripts). To say it’s been a lot of work is an understatement.

This means that I’ve not had a chance to do as much of my own (single-author) writing, but the good news is that I’ve been doing considerably more coauthoring. In the academic world of Philosophy, people tend to think of meaningful writing as single-authored work, at least much of the time. That’s a mistake. There have been excellent philosophical works that are coauthored. Among them, I’m thinking of a number of projects by Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse. But they’re uncommon in the field. I’m glad to have had the chance to do some coauthoring, and one of these opportunities was a very special one. Again related to SOPHIA, I and three scholars put together a project that we pitched for the Public Philosophy Journal. The idea is that some theorizing has been needed for SOPHIA to pursue its mission: to build communities of philosophical conversation. To that end, Andrea Christelle, Sergia Hay, James William Lincoln, and I ventured to Michigan with grant support from the journal and the Mellon Foundation, ultimately, to write together a “Groundwork for Building Communities of Philosophical Conversation.” I’ve experienced coauthoring only a few times, and it’s not always been easy. This case went very smoothly. We’re not done with our project, and getting together remotely to finish the project is taking time, but the pay off has been great. We’re researching needs and methods for building communities of philosophical conversation, because we believe there’s a great need for a more philosophical culture in the United States and elsewhere.

SOPHIA’s group at the PPJ’s 2017 Collaborative Writing Workshop.

Beyond that, I committed to coauthoring a paper for the Summer Seminar on the Future of Philosophy at UNC Ashville this July, which I’ll be driving to this afternoon. I’m also giving my own individual paper there, but have been very happy to coauthor a paper with my Philosophy Bakes Bread co-host Dr. Anthony Cashio as well. We’re looking to finish a longer paper a little later this summer for the journal, Dewey Studies, and this is a step in that direction. The paper is called “Lessons Learned Baking Bread: Taking Philosophy to Radio and Podcast.” We had a blast writing it, and were inspired in relation to that to answer some of our interview questions that we’ve received (and have been way late in answering them) in the last few months. Anthony is not only great to talk to on the show, but also to write with. I’m hoping that my future includes more and more coauthoring, because it’s very rewarding and makes for a superior project, I believe, when we can draw from more minds and from encouraging and sympathetic thinking and dialogue.

Last but not least, I’m finishing work finally on my edited collection of John Dewey’s public writings. That’s been a long-time coming. I keep thinking it’ll be done soon, and it will be soon now… I’m also working to finish my next book, which I’ve been developing longer than any before, called A Culture of Justice. That’s the other topic I’ll be talking about tomorrow in Asheville. These projects would have been done far sooner if I hadn’t committed to an intensive radio show, but I don’t regret a thing. It’s all been super rewarding. I feel as though I’m constantly working and getting more and more behind, but I think it’s more likely that progress is just advancing slowly on the huge projects, bit by bit, and that I’ll be excited to see them at the end. That’s a lot like a big bed project, which I’ve completed in my new hobby of woodworking. I milled the lumber for it in late November and December of 2016. Big projects sometimes creep along, but eventually, if you keep making little bits of progress, they come together, like this:

I need a nap… Nah, coffee will help. I’m excited to be headed to Ashville, to meet up with some great philosophers. And, while there, to do a number of interviews for Philosophy Bakes Bread! When we can record in person, it’s awesome, like in these two cases from my trip to Michigan (photos below). Thanks to Chris Long for the great photo with typewriter in the foreground, and thanks to Naomi Hodgson and Amanda Fulford (I don’t recall who took the picture, of the two) for the pic of our setup in the less attractive computer room in Michigan. The rooms were quite different, but the conversations were both substantive and fun.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Christopher P. Long, 2017.

Photo courtesy of Naomi Hodgson and Amanda Fulford, 2017.

I don’t know how interesting this post is or has been for people, but it felt good to sit down and write it out. It may be of interest to a few people who’ve been kindly following and engaging with me on social media. In fact, I should mention a bit of a celebratory moment: I’ve hit 100,000 “likes” on my Facebook author page! That’s super cool and deeply gratifying. Thanks to everyone who’s been following my work. It’s really rewarding to write about and advocate for things that others care about too, making however small a contribution to dialogue about issues so many of us care about. It’s impossible to measure real impact, but we shouldn’t let difficulty in measuring something meaningful keep us from diving into it, or from belly-flopping into it as the case may be.

Image of a post from my Facebook page about a signed-copy giveaway for my latest books.

If you’ve read this far, thanks for your interest! If you’re not yet following me on Twitter or on Facebook, get to it!

As a stand alone podcast in 2015 and 2016, each episode was scripted and recorded by yours truly. It took a lot of time and it was hard back then to commit to putting out episodes as regularly as I had wanted to. Now that the show has a cohost and is primarily an interview-format and discussion-style show, and now that it’s on the radio each week, it’s been much easier to commit to regular work on it and to put out a steady stream of episodes. The latter is so crucial for developing and growing an audience.

One bit of good news is that we’ve just received our first iTunes reviews for the show, which are both 5 star reviews! We’re thrilled that people are enjoying the show.

It helps for the show to be on the radio, which already has a listening audience base. Plus, the team at the station has been a big help. They’re looking into ways for us to transcribe the episodes, perhaps with grant support. Then, we’ve seen good early numbers for podcast episode downloads. We’ve only been putting them out since the last week of January, with minimal social media distribution efforts and so far we’ve had over 2,000 downloads. We’re looking to start sending out PSA’s and to get with TV news and newspapers about the program. Who knows. It would certainly be awesome eventually to syndicate the program, if interest grows.

The cool thing about a program like Philosophy Bakes Bread is that we can cover so many topics that matter. We can at the same time simply present matters that scholars are researching, that audiences care about, and we can also be advocates about things that matter. We can have people on whom we think ought to be heard more. Soon, we’ll be airing an interview with conference panelists who wrote and spoke about disability and American philosophy. That’s just one of many exciting examples.

I’ll keep you posted from time to time on what we’re up to with the show. For now, if you’ve not already subscribed, what are you waiting for? Go check us out at PhilosophyBakesBread.com. We’re on iTunes and have a regular RSS feed, which you can learn about on our site. We’ve just now submitted our feed to Google Play, which should likely be listing the show soon. And, of course, we’re on Facebook and Twitter. Check us out!

The young woman was asking about accessibility. It’s 2016. Don’t campus buildings have to be accessible?

Before moving to Lexington, I advocated for certain accessibility issues at the University of Mississippi. In the process, I learned a lot about what people say when you push on such issues. There were many disappointing responses at times, the most upsetting of which was being ignored for nearly a year. That’s another story.

The experience in Mississippi revealed to me some interesting challenges to consider even when an organization means to do its best to make a social space maximally accessible.

If you want to advocate for change, critical thinking textbooks will tell you, you have to understand your opposition and address it head on. Finding the weakest arguments that oppose your mission and laughing at them won’t convince people who disagree with you. Identifying the smartest things people say in their defense and responding to those might.

How many buildings are on a university campus? It will vary significantly, but let’s imagine that there are 200 at a major research university. If the campus has been around a long time, many of the buildings will have been built long before the Americans with Disabilities Act. Some will be historic buildings. Others in need of repair. Some will be priorities and others won’t.

Classroom space tends to be at a premium in most institutions. When all of the most commonly used spaces have been taken up, you look for further spots not yet in use. My courses were added far later than is usual this past summer, so they were located in classroom space still available. It so happens that that means Barker Hall.

Barker Hall is historic, built in 1901. The first photo of it is how it looks now, although it is actually surrounded by construction of the new student center at present. The next photo showcases what we mean when we call it historic.

So why isn’t it accessible?

1. Making spaces accessible as you build them is cheaper than retroactively. So, it’s more expensive than making other, perhaps more spacious new buildings accessible.
2. Making historic buildings accessible generally adds cost, because it is desirable to preserve the beauty of historic buildings, while retrofitting. It’s harder, so it costs more.
3. It probably is not the only remaining space that needs retrofitting.
4. Money is always limited and judgments are made all-things-considered about where to spend it.
5. Without many people calling for Barker to change, it won’t any time soon. Though, there may be plans in the works to update it at some point.

But wait, “Isn’t it the law?!”

6. No, it’s not technically the law that every space has to be accessible to every person. The law says that institutions like mine have an obligation to make reasonable accommodations for people who need them. That means that if any of us had a broken ankle or if a student who uses a mobility device were to have added the course, the university would have had to find some solution to move the class meetings.

This last point is delicate, though. How would it make you feel if 30 other people had a change to their meeting location for a semester because of you? It’s something that couldn’t help but make someone feel singled out. Maybe the first classroom was conveniently located for certain people. Barker Hall is a hop away from Patterson Office Tower, where my office is. So, in the end, this answer is not terribly satisfying.

My point here is not that I think it’s fine to have inaccessible buildings. Hell, the window unit air conditioners made it hard to hear each other in August, a problem for people with hearing impairments, not to mention anyone trying to engage in a classroom discussion.

No, this professional baseball team executive has nothing to do with the story here, except that he’s struggling to hear someone, as I often did this semester.

So, at some point I’ll gently start to ask questions about what the structure is here for decisions and initiatives regarding accessibility. It was refreshing, I must say, to hear disdain in the student’s voice. I heard passion and initiative in it. You can’t change much for the better without high expectations. At the same time, the challenges are real even when good people are trying to do many things right with limited resources.

Next semester, I’ll be teaching on the second floor of a building with several elevators. And central air.

Follow me on Twitter @EricTWeber and on Facebook @EricThomasWeberAuthor.