Tag: Education

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The sociology of religion

I was approached by a student who will be a senior next year, and she hasn’t taken her required religious studies credits, but she also wants to retain some flexibility in her schedule, so she asked if I would supervise an “independent study”. For those unfamiliar with this term, where I work, students can do self-guided research with the supervision of a faculty member to whom they’re accountable. This student is interested in sociology, primarily, so to meet her halfway, where she can both (A) get an introduction to sociology, but also (B) earn her religious studies credits, I proposed a sociology of religion focus.

My vision for the study is that in the fall, our primary focus would be on sociology and the sociology of religion. I have both Emile Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life and William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience that I would revisit over the summer in preparation. I suggested we purchase and read through some chapters from a book like Sociology of Religion: Contemporary Developments (4th Edition) by Christiano, Kivisto, and Swatos. As a social science, we’d want something cutting-edge, and that book was published in 2025. But maybe there’s something better out there. If you have suggestions, please comment!

In the spring, I want to direct this student toward an area that interests me (justifying the extra time dedicated to an independent study), but that fits her curiosity. I suggested two books: Bowling Alone by the American political scientist Robert Putnam, which deals with the demise of shared communities in America, and something like Ryan Burge’s Nones (2nd Edition) or Christian Smith’s Why Religion Went Obsolete. As the place of religious community shrinks in the day-to-day lives of many Americans, I’m curious to know what the sociological consequences will be. I think this pathway would give me a good reason to supervise the independent study. And I think this student would learn a lot!

If anyone out there knows a book that you think would be an absolute must-read for me, as the supervising faculty, or a book that you think would be good for this student, feel free to comment. Obviously, I would want to beef up my understanding of the subject matter in order to be prepared to adequately lead the study, so I will do a lot more reading than she will…I presume!

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Classes I’d like to teach because of topics about which I’m curious (sports, video games, and growing up)

It’s a new year, so I’m thinking about new things. Next school year, I’ll be teaching the same slate of core class: “Philosophy of Human Flourishing”; “Religion in Global Context”; “Introduction to the Bible”. While I enjoy teaching all three of these, I’d like to someday, possibly teach courses on the following topics, because I’m curious about them:

1. “History and Philosophy of Games”

    This may be a 1.a and a 1.b option, maybe even a 1.c depending on what would draw the most interest from students (presuming that there would be any). 1.a would be “History and Philosophy of Games” but if that’s too broad, 1.b would be “History and Philosophy of Sports”. If 1.a was doable, I’d open with Unit 1, “What Is a Game?” I’d consult the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein but also Bernard Suits (The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia), Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World), and the philosopher who I’m currently reading: C. Thi Nguyen (Games: Agency as Art). Unit 2 would likely focus on, for lack of a better word, physical games ranging from baseball to Uno, or “sport” if the former idea is too broad. Unit 3 would likely focus on video games. Each unit would begin with a history of those types of games. I’m not sure what other lessons I’d add yet, though I imagine.

    If this is too much to stuff into one class, then my 1.b option would just be, as mention, “History and Philosophy of Sports” and my 1.c option would be “History and Philosophy of Video Games”. Both of these topics would be much easier to plan for separately. Paradoxically, I don’t play video games all that much, but they were a massive part of my childhood, so I find them interesting still. I watch a ton of sports, but don’t play much. I think the history and philosophy of sports would be easier to create, as I’m more familiar, but I imagine, if somehow I could incorporate some video game play time into the class, the history and philosophy of video games would be a lot more fun to create/teach.

    2. “Philosophy for Becoming an Adult” or “Philosophy for Adulthood”

    I imagine this being an elective for seniors. Unit 1 would focus on meaning-generation. I could see myself teaching lessons on what major philosophical and religious traditions have presented as the meaning of human life. (For the religious traditions, I could use Stephen Prothero’s four key components of religions (problem, solution, technique, and exemplars) which might map onto schools like Stoicism, Epicureanism, Confucianism, etc.

    Then, Unit 2 would focus on relationships. Maybe something related to Confucius’ ranking of relationships and teachings about filial piety combined with something on friendship (maybe consulting Robin Dunbar’s Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships) and maybe something—if I’m brave—on romantic relationships, though I’d be super cautious about this, and may want to choose some novel angle. Unit 3 would focus on work and career, maybe built around Matthew Hammerton’s “What Is Wrong with Workism?” Hammerton mentions Aristotelean “perfectionism,” which would be worth a lesson in itself. I think a discussion of AI’s relationship to work and whether we want a “post-work future” would be a great fit here.

      An introduction to ethic could be a lot of fun too.

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      Hannah Arendt’s “two faculties” and “two…different mental activities”

      A week ago, I wrote about Svend Brinkmann’s distinction between the “problem-solving” and the “meaning generation” forms of thinking (“Two forms of thinking: problem-solving and meaning generating”). In Hannah Arendt‘s Life of the Mind, she presents a similar framing of “two…different mental activities” (p. 14). Prompted by Immanuel Kant’s “scandal of reason” “that is, the fact that our mind is not capable of certain and verifiable knowledge regarding matters and questions that it nevertheless can’t help thinking about”, i.e. “‘ultimate questions’ of God, freedom, and immortality”, Arendt argues that we have “the distinguishing of two faculties”. She calls them “reason and intellect” that she says “coincides with…thinking and knowing” which she frames as “mental activities”. These “mental activities” align with “two altogether different concerns, meaning…and cognition” (p. 14).

      Kant’s “scandal of reason” can be addressed when we recognize the differences between:

      1. Our “faculty” of “reason”, that is experienced through the “mental activity” of “thinking” which aligns with the “concern” of “meaning”.
      2. Our “faculty” of “intellect”, that is experienced through the “mental activity” of “knowing” which aligns with the “concern” of “cognition”.

      These two framings align with Brinkmann’s (1) “meaning generating” and (2) “problem-solving”. If we combine Brinkmann’s categories with Arendt’s, here’s what we get. Arendt uses the word “reason” to refer to the type of thinking (“mental activity” which she calls “thinking”) that is concerned with “meaning” or Brinkmann’s “meaning generating”. I might use my faculty of “reason” to “think” about the “meaning” of a concept like “God” or “freedom”. In response to Kant, yes, our mind is unable to ultimately arrive at sure “knowledge” of whether there’s a God, or what it means for us to be free, or if we’re immortal in some sense, but that doesn’t prevent us from pondering these questions seriously. Brinkmann’s “meaning generation” can be “instrumental” but more often than not, it’s “intrinsic”. We want meaning because meaning gives us the basis for living as humans rather than as robots. But as humans, we don’t exist only to “solve” problems. As humans, we benefit from reflecting on what we think “love” is or should look like (for example), even if there’s never an objective answer to be found to our questions.

      Arendt uses the word “intellect” to refer to the type of thinking (“mental activity”) which she calls “knowing” that is concerned with “cognition” or Brinkmann’s “problem-solving”. I might use my faculty of “intellect” to “know” through “cognition” the answer to a mathematical question, or a question of logic, or through the empiricism of science. Brinkmann’s “problem-solving” can be “intrinsic” but more often than not, it’s “instrumental”. We want to solve problems because they help us live better in our world. As humans, if we focused on meaning alone, we’d starve to death. We’d live far less enjoyable lives with less time for leisurely thinking and other activities. As humans, we benefit from creating new technologies, trying to cure cancer, etc.

      As I said in the aforementioned previous post, I don’t see these two approaches to thinking as opposites. But our society has begun to create an imbalance. We value intellect/knowing/cognition, or “problem-solving” but we’ve begun to devalue reason/thinking/meaning. In the United States, we’ve been playing with the health of our democracy. I know that education alone won’t save us. In fact, I don’t think “meaning generation” alone will save us. But I don’t think democracies can survive without “meaning generation”.

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      Two forms of thinking: problem-solving and meaning generating

      A couple of weeks ago, I finished Svend Brinkmann‘s brilliant little book, Think: In Defence of a Thoughtful Life. In the first chapter (“What do you think?”) he argues that there are two forms of thinking: (1) problem-solving and (2) meaning generating (p. 18). I found this helpful as someone who teaches religion and philosophy in a society that continues to devalue the humanities in favor of STEM. STEM focused on Brinkmann’s “problem-solving” form of thinking. He describes it as “instrumental and intrinsic thinking” that “can either be a tool in service to something else, or an end in itself with (intrinsic) value per se.” He gives examples of the “instrumental” and “intrinsic” form of “problem-solving” style thinking (p. 19). For “instrumental” he says, “For example, choosing the right recruit after a job interview”. For intrinsic, he says, “For example, doing a crossword”.

      The “instrumental” approach to “problem-solving” thinking solves a problem in service to something else. This style of thinking is done in order to choose the right person for the job for the benefit of the company that’s doing the hiring. On the other hand, the “intrinsic” approach would include, as with the example, doing a crossword or another puzzle. I have a colleague who plays the New York Times’ game “Wordle” almost religiously. He is solving a problem for the pure enjoyment of solving the problem. There’s no other end.

      My colleagues who teach math, science, and for the most part, Innovation and Design, are helping students learn to value instrumental thinking. This is a valuable skill. And it’s a skill our society values. But it’s not the only style of thinking nor is it the only style of thinking that’s valuable.

      Brinkmann’s second style is “meaning generation”. He uses the example of when we “think back” on a situation that was formative in our lives in order to better understand it. This approach to thinking “is related to daydreaming and reverie” (p. 18). This means it can be “proactive” as much as “retroactive” thinking.

      Brinkmann writes (p. 18):

      “Thinking as meaning generation doesn’t need to be about our life, but can be about more general existential or cosmological questions: Is there a God? Is the universe infinite? Is there life after death? What would the ideal society look like? From where does the experience of beauty stem? Do we have a duty to forgive? What is love?”

      When we think on these things, “the point is not to ‘solve the problem’ and move on, but to let our minds wander and mull them over.” The examples Brinkmann gives for “meaning generation” style thinking include “instrumental” and “intrinsic” examples as well (p. 19). For “instrumental” he says, “For example, writing an exam essay about your future”. For “intrinsic” he says, “For example, reflecting freely on the meaning of life”. We may write the essay in order to help us think clearly about what we want to do to shape the life we want to live. But we may reflect on the meaning of life for the sole purpose that we want to consider what all of this means. Meaning is inherently valuable just like the joy of solving problems can be.

      Brinkmann argues that “children tend to learn—and master—problem-solving before meaning generation”. His claim is that meaning generation “requires maturity and depth beyond the reach of children” and that “Philosophical thoughtfulness calls for a more mature intellect” (p. 20). I want to say “yes” and “no” to this because I do think children can begin participating in meaning generation though I get what he’s saying.

      While both styles are important, it makes me wonder: what does it say about our society that we’ve placed such heavy emphasis only on one style. The humanities are dying. Fewer college students are majoring in humanities related fields. I’m convinced that this is good for capitalism but detrimental to democracy. We need a society that can invent and make and fix. We need a society that can solve problems like climate change and cancer. But for our own mental health, collective well-being, and the common good, we need people to think about why we do what we do, why we want what we want, where we want to go and what we want to become. If a society can do things but they can’t explain why any of it is meaningful outside of capitalist terms such as wealth and employment, I fear we’re headed for ruin. I get it: before someone commits to student loans and majoring in a field of study for four to six years, they want to know that there will be a paycheck on the other side. This is practical and wise. But our lives can’t be just about our work. It can’t be just about our careers. Honestly, that benefits only those at the highest point of our economic class system. The rest of us better learn to ask what it is that gives meaning to our lives outside the 9-5.

      I worry that there’s reason why cultural forces want us to participate in only one form of thinking as a society; why our government, universities, wealthy elite, and others tell us that we need to do something “practical” that’s a “real job” and my hunch is that they don’t want us to stop and ask ourselves “why” we are doing what we’re doing; why we’re pouring our energies into “problem-solving” while ignoring “meaning generation”. I think that if more of us stopped to participate in “meaning generation” it may lead us to reevaluate how we spend the several short decades of our life on this planet.

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      Song of the Day

      This week I was talking to one of our seniors who took my classes when she was either a freshman or a sophomore. She told me that those were difficult years for her but then she shared something that made my day. She told me that the days that she had my class she would brighten up a bit because she thought, “I wonder what song will be played in LePort’s class today?” She’s referring to a daily tradition of mine that I derived from my friend and mentor Ruben Dupertuis. I begin each class with a “Song of the Day” that is playing toward the end of the passing period between classes. As they enter my classroom, the song is connected in some way to that day’s lesson content. It could be the artist, song title, album cover/music video, or the excerpt from the lyrics that are on the screen.

      I’ve turned “Song of the Day” into a daily extra credit (“Bonus Point”) opportunity where I allow up to five students to try to tell me what the connection is. It functions as a fun pregame show, if you will, for the lesson’s content. But it’s also a culture builder. It creates a warmth to the classroom as they enter. Or, at least that’s what I hope it creates! And I think for many it works to get them thinking about what we’re about to learn as they listen to their peers try to bridge the gap between the song and the title of the lesson written on a white board.

      For the aforementioned student, it was just the idea of a class beginning with music that brighten her day. I don’t think my pedagogical goals were being accomplished because of all that she was experiencing but as I’ve learned over the past eight years as a high school teacher, your main priority is helping young people become adults. What you teach does matter. I don’t want to downplay that at all. The subject-matter matters! But your goal in high school is different than being a college professor who is teaching to students who happen to be majoring in your field of expertise. Most of your students won’t go on to become the same type of professional that you are. (So far, only one of the several hundred students that I’ve taught has gone on to seminary. Two others minored in religious studies and another minored in philosophy. I could be wrong but I think that’s the extent of the students who have gone on to focus on the type of content that I teach once they graduated.) They will become contributors to our society which I hope will remain a functioning democracy. Sometimes the best you can do is help them continue forward through their rough patches. That may mean that your classroom feels like a place where they can be happy during unhappy days.

      But there’s a pedagogical method to the madness as well. Music helps our brain make connections and memories. I’ve had students walk past my classroom and tell me, “I remember that song and we talked about…”! They don’t remember all the details but they have some retention. I was never one to memorize Bible passages, or lines from plays, etc., but what I do remember all the way from childhood was information that was connected to music (for example, I can tell you the “fruits of the spirit” because I was taught it to music as a kid).

      On a final note, I don’t think teachers need to start each class with music but I do wonder how much music could improve a class. I imagine teaching modern American history and dropping certain songs into different lessons that were important at the time. My guess is that this would enliven any class but also tie the content to music which should help students remember what was taught a little better!

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      If I could select the courses high school freshmen take

      Where I work, I’m part of an advisory cycle that sticks with the same students for their freshmen-sophomore years, then returns back to freshmen. I’m back to advising freshmen this year after finishing a two year cycle with my last group of now juniors. This has me thinking about what selection of courses I wish they were taking if I had the power to determine such things.

      First, with regard to their English, Math, and Science classes, I wouldn’t make any changes. As far as I can tell, those department chairs have things handled and honestly, I don’t know enough about those disciplines to speak to how things should be. Our school has a structure called “core four” where each year they must take an English, History, Math, and Science class. Since students should have seven classes per semester, that takes three of the spaces.

      Currently, we have a history sequence called “Global Studies I” and “Global Studies II” which are world history classes for freshmen and sophomores. A colleague of mine is teaching an elective this year on the Holocaust for juniors and seniors and he’s introducing them to historiography around the Holocaust and how to engage primary sources. This elective is great for theory and method. If it were up to me, “Global Studies I” would be more like that elective. The first semester may be a 10,000 foot overview of ancient history but the second semester should be theory and method. I’ve noticed that many high school students can’t articulate why we study history other than say, “avoiding the mistakes of the past”. This is one good reason but hardly the only reason. We need to teach students the “why and how” of history and not just the “what”. (As you can see, I’m impressed by what my colleague, a historian himself, is doing!)

      That leaves three spaces for art and/or religion, a world language, an elective if they don’t take either their religion/art class, or if they’re in our Corps of Cadets, the class required to be involved. As with English, Math, and Science, I don’t have a strong opinion on what art class a student should take. Where I work, the world language option is Latin or Spanish. Obviously, depending on the student and their interests, they’ll do well to learn either of those.

      This brings me to my arena: religion. In part, I’m happy to see that many freshmen take one of their two required semesters of religion, if not both. But there’s something that I’m more and more convinced, whether or not it fits under the umbrella of “religion” or not, would be even better for freshmen for at least one semester: a class on living the good life. In short, this would be a class focusing on what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia, finding the highest good as a human. This would require a heavy dose of ethics, since, as Macklemore says in “Growing Up”: “The quickest way to happiness learning to be selfless/Ask more questions, talk about yourself less”. Thinking about others, which is a focus of ethics, is part of the path toward eudaimonia. But so is asking the question: what does it mean to be human? What are humans for?

      Education in our capitalist society focuses a lot of how to give students the tools they need to succeed by the metrics of capitalist values but we fail to help students see that their value lies beyond this form of achievement. (I discuss this a bit in “Education as rooted innovation”.) We say this to them. For example, our chaplain says this to them every day in various ways in chapel. But do we give them the philosophical tools to help them evaluate their values in light of society’s values and how society values them? A class like this one would do that.

      I’m one of those that thinks law students, biology majors, engineering students, etc., should take a class like this in college. Why? Because as we learned in the original Jurassic Park:

      And we need to teach students to stop and think if they should. Will such and such a behavior be good for you and others? Will such and such a goal be good for you and others? If the college system won’t take on this challenge, then we must do so at the level of secondary education. (This is especially true in a school like mine that is tied to the Episcopal Church.) And we should do it as they begin high school so that they have the tools for self-evaluation, self-reflection, self-awareness, and self-acceptance from the beginning.

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      A reflective note on Stephen Mumford’s “A Philosopher Looks at Sport”

      As I’ve been asking myself (1) how I, as a father, want to teach my child about thoughtfulness and (2) how I, as a teacher, want to educate my students, I’ve been coming around to the idea that one way to engage younger mind with subjects that we think they should study is to package that subject in an accessible manner. By this, I mean teach them (A) a subject with which they’re less familiar through (B) a subject with which they have greater, and maybe more natural, familiarity. As I mentioned in a recent post (see “Sports and non-dualistic education”), as I reflect upon the adolescent version of myself—who was a mediocre student, at best—I recognize that one of the best ways to have engaged me would have been by connecting what we were learning to sports. I was obsessed with sports but not Algebra, or U.S. history. Yet it was sports that led me to be learn about Jesse Owens embarrassing Hitler, or where Baltimore is on a map, or how to calculate a batting average. For this reason, as I think about the need to teach my students the skills that will help them evaluate the wave upon wave of information that comes their way—how to be critical, skeptical even, before embracing something just because Google found it or because someone said it on TikTok—a conclusion that I’m tentatively reaching is that, for example, if I were to teach a philosophy class at my school in the future, a philosophy of sport would be the way to go. It would start with (B) sport, which matters to a majority of high schoolers, and then guide them to (A) the skills that philosophy can provide them.

      As I’ve been reading on the philosophy of sport, one book that I finished recently is Stephen Mumford‘s A Philosopher Looks at Sport. It’s a small book (at 5 x 0.5 x 7.5 inches) and a short one (at about 133 pp. of content) but it’s very good. It built around six topics: physicality, competition, definition (of sport), spectacle, ethics, and inclusion. One of this main points is that we find joy in developing an ability and in displaying that ability. Sport is a venue for that development/display but it adds competition. Competition can be a negative thing but Mumford sees athletic competition as a sort of bubble where we can put forth a certain level of effort without the negative effects because ultimately, the goals are themselves “unimportant”. For example, if I were wrestling for a high school state title, it would matter to me, it would be important, but not in the same way as if I were wrestling a potential mugger or a wild animal that I encountered on a walk. The latter has my very life and well-being at stake in a way that sport doesn’t…or shouldn’t.

      Once Mumford provides a working definition of sport, he addresses why we enjoy the spectacle of it all (which is very relevant right now as the Summer Olympics are in full swing) and he asks questions about the ethics of sport. Both of these topics are fascinating. I’ve long wondered to myself why I can spend a Sunday watching three or four NFL games and enjoy it. And the ethics section had me thinking about why we allow for certain things in sport (e.g. boxers pummeling each other) that we wouldn’t allow in general (boxing on the street is assault). Mumford addresses whether there is an “internalist” ethic that differs from the outside world or if the line between sport/not-sport is more porous.

      Finally, his section on inclusion felt very relevant because as I was reading it, the ugly debate over Algerian Olympic boxer Imane Khelif’s eligibility was reminding me that the Internet really does bring out some of our worst characteristics. We need to calmly and thoughtfully ponder the relationship between sport and gender and transgender athletes in a world that wants us to be reactionary and vitriolic. And with the Paralympics beginning, we should be cognizant of our thoughts around ability/disability and sport. Mumford addresses topics like these and this reinforces my first point. Sport may not be as high stakes as some things (e.g. the wars in Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine) but sport is a place where many high-stakes debates are magnified, including things like gender, ability, bodily objectification, fairness in pay, etc. These topics may be intimidating in themselves but studying them through the lens of sports can provide students with an otherwise unattainable accessibility and books like this one go a long way toward helping us in this endeavor.

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      Sports and non-dualistic education?

      I have a confession to make. As much as I enjoy sports—more watching than playing them at this stage in my life—I’ve had a love/hate relationship with high school athletics. There are two reasons for this: (1) it seems that many student-athletes are making the “student” part carry more of the adjectival weight than ever, so that we have athletes who happen to be students rather than students who happen to be athletes and (2) athletics can make it difficult for teachers to plan lessons and assessments with the whole class in mind. Let me explain both further.

      With regard to (1), most students won’t be D-1 athletes, let alone professional athletes. Their studies seem to matter more for their long-term success than their participation in athletics. Even though I value athletics, I’ve worried about how much emotion and attention my students put into sports compared to the subjects that may have something to do with their future professions or actions as citizens in a functioning democracy.

      With regard to (2), it can be a pain to chase down student-athletes who miss class, especially when they miss a lot of class. I’ve seen student-athletes who seem completely lost at times because they (a) missed class where I’m present to teach/explain concepts and then (b) rush through the supplementary homework, aiming to complete it in a hurry rather than taking the time to learn the content. Because they miss several classes on, for example, days when they have to travel, this can cause the missed work to pile up on the student so that their concern is to simply do what has to be done to maintain a good grade. This leads to frustration in the classroom. I’m frustrated because I know they’re doing the minimum; they’re frustrated because they can’t keep up with the conversations or understand the assignments that were created with their presence in mind.

      As NIL rights have come to dominate college athletics, I’m sure that many of my colleagues in higher ed are feeling some of this pressure. College athletics has become a profession. College athletes are athletes first; students second, much (most?) of the time. But at the collegiate level, most students aren’t participating in the athletics programs. (In fall 2021, there were 15.44 million undergraduate students in the U.S. and 520,000 NCAA student-athletes.) For many high school teachers, most of our students play at least one team sport, maybe more. According to EducationWeek, between 1991-2019, 57.4% of high school students “played on at least one school or community sports team in the past year”. It seems like there may be a decline in youth sports participation but in small schools like mine where students have an easier time making a roster, it often feels like students are playing sports all the time.

      A couple of books that I’ve been reading have caused me to pause and rethink my intuitions/criticisms. First, in Emily Ryall’s Philosophy of Sports: Key Questions, there’s a chapter titled, “Is the Body Just Another Tool in Sport?” In the first paragraph, Ryall comments (on p. 67),

      “Traditionally, and certainly in academia, the body is reduced to secondary consideration. It is the mind or soul that is of primary importance and of greater worth; the body is often considered an imperfect vehicle that contains these elements. Indeed, those who spend time perfecting their bodily appearance, whether through cosmetic surgery, steroids or pumping weights are often denigrated by the learned elite. Spending time on your body is considered vain and shallow, spending time on developing your mind by contrast is not.

      Ryall notes that in Ancient Greece, “a common view was that the body and soul were inter-dependent and inseparable (p. 67).” In Greek thought, “A body without a soul was simply a corpse. As such, physical education was a much more holistic practice; training the body was also considered to be training the soul (p. 68).” Ryall reminds us that one of the founding fathers of western philosophy, Plato, was a “competitive wrestler” so that “one of the most renowned ancient Greek philosophers, and the first person to establish a higher-education academy,” happened to be an athlete (p. 68)

      For Ryall, it’s the mind-body dualism of René Descartes that may be most to blame for our current dichotomy between training the mind and training the body. Anyone who knows about Descartes program of “extreme skepticism” knows that Descartes determined the one thing that he can’t doubt is that he is a thinking reality: “I think therefore I am.” Since the existence of physical matter could be doubted, but Descartes own thinking mind was necessary for him to even doubt, the physical and the mental had to be separated with the mental being something more real than the physical (pp. 68-69).

      In A Philosopher Looks at Sport, Stephen Mumford makes the same connection. He observes that “Philosophers spend much time considering the nature of the mental and frequently ignore the significance of physical activity (p. 8).” But this is a mistake: “we are bodied beings, able to take pleasure in what we can do with our physical existence (p. 8).” Mumford “credits” Descartes with this the preeminence of this view, one he rejects. He states, “…we are essentially physical beings and this is a fact upon which the pleasure of exercising physical capacities to a degree rests (p. 9).”

      For Mumford, we should prefer philosophers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty who emphasize embodiedness. He rejects the Cartesian idea that we are “essentially a thinking thing”. In fact, Mumford is so committed to this point that he writes, “I am slightly nervous about use of the term ’embodied'” because this implies “that there is a thing, in the body, which has become embodied” which means it exists before a body is given to it (p. 9).

      Mumford prefers to say we’re simply “bodied”. He comments, “Everything that I learn, of that stimulates my senses, has come originally through my body (p. 10).” Borrowing from Wittgenstein’s comment “if a lion could talk, we would not be able to understand it” (Philosophical Investigations, section 326), Mumford argues that “if a disembodied soul could talk, we would not be able to understand it (p. 11).” Like Thomas Nagel’s “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” the claim here is that being bodied as humans is how we know the world. Even if we somehow outlive our bodies as “mind,” the experience would be radically different than our current one: “There would be nothing recognisably us in this disembodied thing.” Why? “To be human is to have a body…” (p. 11).

      Even if we were to reject this view as being too reductively materialist, the basic points are sound. We are bodied. If mind can remain after the death of the body, it seems to be an emergent property of the body that somehow continues after it’s source has passed (unless we embrace a concept like pre-existent souls and/or some form of strong mind-body dualism or maybe panpsychist ideas). But we don’t experience that form of existence until we die. As long as we’re living, we’re bodied. If this is correct, then our education is bodied. While sitting in a classroom learning Algebra is bodied, so is running drills in practice to help students learn the playbook. Both are ways of learning. Both are forms of education. So, as an educator, I should try to see my teaching as one way of contributing to student learning, but not the only way and not in a way that is inherently superior to athletics.

      On a related note, if I’m honest, when I was in high school, sports was everything. Like most kids, I didn’t dream of getting a PhD in “Religion and Theology” but instead of playing left-field for the San Francisco Giants or cornerback for the 49ers. As I aged and realized that I didn’t have the necessary skills or size, I imagined being the next Bob Costas or Dan Patrick. I hated reading, except for Sports Illustrated or ESPN the Magazine. I hated math, except sports statistics. I learned American geography by looking on a map to see where the Chicago Bulls were located and I learned about international geography through events like the Summer Olympics. While I have no intent on throwing shade at the adults in my life at that time, I can imagine that if someone could’ve connected the subjects that I hated to athletics in a clear way, it may have peaked my interest! As a high school teacher, I find myself asking how I can connect what I teach to what already matters to my students. Sometimes this is difficult. Sometimes, I’m successful in showing the value of religious studies to students who will one day major in business, or economics, etc. Sometimes, students who are religious already or who appreciate literature will be excited about my biblical studies classes. But I find myself working to create and hopefully get approved classes like “Philosophy, Religion, and Sports” (which I’d like to start teaching in fall ’25 if I get approval) because I want to bring the educational skills that matter to me, and that I believe with benefit my students, to where they’re at already. (Obviously, many students aren’t interested in sports, but many are!)

      This doesn’t erase the two concerns that I mentioned earlier though. Maybe schools need a full-time student-athlete czar that’s not the school’s athletic director. We have roles for school psychologists, for accommodations oversights, etc., but there may be a temptation to leave things to the student-athletes, or expect coaches to play the role of a go-between for students, athletes, and their families. A student-athlete czar would be responsible for coordinating schedules, assignments, etc., overlooking the academic performance of all active student-athletes while insuring communication on homework, missing assignments, key assessments, and so forth. What we don’t want is a dualism that goes the other way: a type of mindlessness. Athletes need to cultivate their minds. We admire athletes who combine their physical prowess with an intellectualizing of the game: think Peyton Manning reading defenses, Michael Jordan learning how to use the fadeaway jumper as he aged, catchers with a grasp of analytics, or former players like Greg Olsen who can explain the game to viewers from an insider’s perspective. Analytical and communication skills should be formed in athletes and pairs quite naturally with their athletic goals. I’d like to imagine that a “philosophy of sports” class would contribute to the holistic education of student-athletes.

      Now, a final thing should be noted: sports aren’t the only path the non-dualistic education. Dance is bodied. Theater is bodied. A variety of fine arts classes are bodied. While it’s difficult to make a topic like religious studies bodied, some lessons can included bodied activities. But in the ecosystem of a school, physical education makes sure that the overall education of most of our student is a non-dualistic one, and I can appreciate that.

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      Be cautious with “calling” language

      I want to state up front that this post isn’t addressing whether or not people are “called” to a “vocation” or not (e.g. a clergy person being called by God). Instead, it’s just a reminder that this language can be dangerous. As someone who was raised in Pentecostal circles where there was a lot of talk about “discovering God’s calling” or “knowing God’s will for your life,” I know that it can be discombobulating. It’s like you’re invited into a weird cosmic game show where the prize is meaning and purpose but if you lose there could be some sort of divine judgment/disapproval awaiting you or, at best, a sense of lostness and meaninglessness.

      It wasn’t until late in adulthood when I was told that I should read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning that I encountered something like an existentialist worldview where instead of finding the singular meaning to which I was “called,” I instead was invited to create meaningfulness for myself. It was at that point that I made the theological move in my mind that if there’s a God who wants things for us, this God created us to be creators who have the responsibility to shape our meaning and many different meanings are welcomed. There isn’t one meaning/one calling. It was sort of like if Jean-Paul Sartre wasn’t an atheist. And it helped me move away from the idea that I had missed some grand purpose for my life. Instead, I could determine what I wanted my life to be (to the degree that we’re “free” to do so).

      In my late teens and twenties, I wrestled with whether or not I was called to be a clergy person. I had some people tell me that I was. I had others act as if I wasn’t. I’m glad that I didn’t pursue that path. For many, it becomes a life-time “vocation”. I’ve know pastor/preacher-types who are quite miserable in “ministry” but feel that it’s was they’re “called” to do.

      For about a year, I spent time with a Mennonite community. Their view of clergy was very different from what I knew. Pastors could serve for some time but then go back to another career in the future. Or they could be “dual-vocation” where they served their local church in that particular capacity while still working a 9-5 elsewhere during the week. “Pastor” was part of their identity; it wasn’t their entire identity. I think this is a healthier view than that of branches within Christianity that imply that a “calling” is for a lifetime.

      This language isn’t limited to religious settings. In education, it’s very prevalent. I know of plenty of teachers who feel that they should spend their already too low income on school supplies because their job is a “calling” and their work is a “vocation”. Instead of recognizing that our education system is broken, they take personal responsibility to “save the kids,” putting their own health on the line, and stressing their finances. Calling/vocation language can be used to pressure teachers into accepting low pay, into working extra unpaid hours, into being mistreated and dehumanized. As I’ve said, “for the kids” language is often manipulative. It aims to guilt teachers into sacrificing themselves for education systems that won’t change. In the process, teachers raise young people who themselves are being taught to forsake their own life-work balance in the future. This cycle of guilting in the name of calling/vocation serves only the purposes of those our society most benefits, which, surprise, surprise, is rarely people who work in education. Many of the administrators who use these guilting techniques had them used on them when they were teachers and now that they feel the pressure to make sure that their schools do more with less, they parrot these lines.

      The fact of the matter is that if teaching is a “calling” (however we may interpret that word) it’s also a “profession”; as much as teaching is a “vocation” it’s also a “career”. When we abandon professional/career language for calling/vocation language, we put ourselves at risk of being dumped into some sort of caste system where we’ve been born to do a task for our society that is our predetermined role and that any hope of more respect, better pay and benefits, etc., is failing to recognize our “place”.

      I get the therapeutic value of “calling/vocation” language. It helps clergy, teachers, and others finding meaning outside of pay, benefits, resources, etc. But it also can be a form of self-harm that allow others to justify their mistreatment of us. For that reason, be cautious with “calling” language in a culture looking for reasons to exploit.

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      Education as rooted innovation

      Several days ago, I was reading James P. Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. While a book of philosophy, it’s full of aphorisms, including “To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.” With regard to this particular aphorism, he unpacks it with a paragraph that I’ve been chewing on. He writes (p. 19):

      “Education discovers an increasing richness in the past, because it sees what is unfinished there. Training regards the past as finished and the future as to be finished. Education leads toward a continuing self-discovery; training leads toward a final self-definition.

      “Training repeats a completed past in the future. Education continues an unfinished past into the future.”

      I’ve been pondering these statements in relation to my own context. I teach in a school that can be best described as the intersection of several forms of education. We’re not a “military school” but we do have a prominent Corps of Cadets. We’re a religious school but we’re not fundamentalist, sectarian, or exclusive, as we’re grounded in the openness of Episcopal Christianity. We’re a college preparatory school but we’re not a school that grounds itself primarily/only in what happens in the classroom. We value athletics but we’re too small and too private to ever be a factory for D-1 athletes. We have an “Arts and Innovation” department but I wouldn’t characterize us as an art school or a tech school. We value STEM but we’re not myopically STEM based. I mean, we have a daily chapel service and a religious studies requirement to graduate, so I think you get the idea.

      In many ways, we try to do too much. But if you knew the school and its context in San Antonio, you’d know that this is package makes sense as a product. The question I ask myself when wanting to move beyond mere consumerism is, “How does it make sense beyond being a product for a particular audience/demographic?” This is where Carse’s comments about education may be valuable.

      All schools train students but training isn’t the only goal, or even the primary one, of most institutions of learning. Sure, there are nursing schools, and mechanic schools, and so forth. Their purpose is to train students. The methods are set. Innovation isn’t desired. We don’t want nurses experimenting on patients. I want a mechanic to fix what needs to be fixed when I bring my car to the shop, and I want it done quickly and efficiently. Training is good. In my context—secondary education in a school with middle and upper school divisions—this isn’t why we exist though. We don’t exist merely to train; we exist to educate.

      Education can’t be just memorizing facts. Education can’t be just trivia. As Carse said, education “discovers the richness of the past”. This doesn’t mean knowing history for pragmatic, negative purposes (e.g. “avoiding the mistakes of the past”). Or just to do well on an AP exam. Instead, it’s for the purpose of rooting a student. We’re storied beings and we want to be part of something, something bigger than our own individuality. The past doesn’t just provide us with a map toward success or a warning of pitfalls. It invites us into an ongoing, collective project, where our individuality is enhanced by its interconnection with others.

      This may sound like I’m talking about teaching history, religion, or philosophy only, but I don’t think this is the case. Algebra can be training but it can be story. What has algebra done for us humans. How did we discover/create it? What great things have we done with it? What great things might we do with it? What is it like to be the type of creatures who can do algebra? What is it like to be part of a species that can use our mind this way to do this type of thinking? This is true of teaching biology, and calculus, and chemistry, and physics.

      We can train someone in physics or we can educate them in it. Or, to my area of teaching, we can indoctrinate students in religion or we can educate them about religion. The first assumes finality; the second openness. The first assumes training; the second education. To educate a student about religion isn’t to close off their future, so that their ideas about religion are complete once they get their high school diploma. To educate about religion is to point students to the past, and to contemporary realities, so that they can simultaneously (A) ground themselves in the collective, ongoing exercise of meaning making that we humans call “religion” (even if their path is irreligious, they need to know what it is that they’re departing from) and (B) so that they can be agents in this process going forward into their own shared future. The goal isn’t to memorize who the Prophet Moses is, or the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, or interpretations of the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment. The goal can’t be to simply “know things”. The goal is to have them critically (i.e. thoughtfully) evaluate and consider these things, asking why their forebears valued these people/concepts, and to ask what we should do with them going forward. Are these the stories we want to identify with? Are these the projects within which we want to ground ourselves? Is this the language of the communities with which we want to associate? If so, how should we understand them, adopt them, and adapt them?

      Education takes the narratives, communities, and identities of the past into the future. This includes the good and the bad. The good which we celebrate, recreate, and extend; the bad which we lament, safeguard against, and work to eliminate. This means education isn’t about just “getting a job” but getting a job that feels like it’s part of something bigger and ongoing. It’s not just about “making money” but wisely making money with a purpose/goal for that money, an awareness of our indebtedness to the people who have paved the way for us to make that money, an ethic that asks how much of it we need and what we should do with it, and a reasonableness that remembers our own temporality and interconnectedness so that we don’t fall prey to the disease of greed which when spread too far results in an unsustainable future for us all.

      For some, this sort of collectiveness may sound dangerous. It may seem like the type of error that postmodernity has attempted to correct. In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Jean-Françios Leotard spoke of the “postmodern condition” as “incredulity toward metanarratives”. As Ashley Woodward explains, “…metanarratives are understood as totalising stories about history and the goals of the human race that ground and legitimise knowledges and cultural practises”. We may do well to remain generally suspicious of metanarratives. There are many forms of religious dogmatics, nationalisms, and other ideologies that can be dangerous when adopted en masse, especially by the masses! But we do need narratives. We need interconnected narratives. We need narratives that can be linked together with interchangeable parts. And I don’t think the narrative of “training” alone can fulfill us humans. This means that personally, I must ground myself in the narratives of being human, being Christian, being American. We can’t have a view from no where. We can’t start building our identity suspended in the air. Instead, we must become educated in our inherited metanarratives into which we were born while simultaneously taking responsibility for our contribution to what those metanarratives will mean in the present and in the future. The harm of metanarratives can be addressed by accepting them as lacking concreteness; as being dynamic. But abandoning them completely leaves us creating metanarratives out of thin air—metanarratives about the danger of metanarratives which puts us as risk of the worst of unchecked, selfish individualism and nihilism.

      With this in mind, I can imagine our Corps of Cadets educating based on their commitment to the values and virtues of discipline, comradely, self-sacrifice, etc., that come from the traditions of military preparation. Our athletics can teach us the same things, pointing back to exemplars, both physical and spiritual. (As a Giants fan, I think of Willie Mays who just passed, and what he meant as an athlete to Black Americans, Americans in general, Giants fans, baseball fans in general, people in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City, etc. In other words, for example, we shouldn’t just teach kids to play baseball but invite them into the story of baseball. I could go on but I think the ideas is clear.) Even in a school like mine that feels like it could be three or four schools rolled into one, the unifying reality that keeps it all rolled together can be this commitment to not merely train but to educate: to prepare students to be surprised; to help them discover the richness of the past; to give them a glimpse of what remains unfinished and in need of work; to invite them into self-discovery; to bridge the past to the present to the future so that students become part of an ongoing human project that aims for the greater good for us all.