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As I found in Derek Siver’s notes on the book Geography of Genius: “We’re not talking about conversation as a form of entertainment. We’re talking about conversation as the piling up of premises leading to a conclusion. We’re talking about conversation that takes an issue forward, conversation as a way of getting somewhere.”
As a newish concept to me, I added the above quote to my essay on Craving One on One Conversation, from October 2020.
As for students, and “meaning of life conversations,” I told my niece that students who want to keep learning with each other outside of class are more likely to be found in the clubs and student government, especially the media clubs.
Below is from the comment section on a retired professor’s blog, Orange Crate, about speaking and writing at the university level.
Sean Crawford said…
I miss the world I never knew that Simone de Beauvoir describes where when her peers entered a (cafe?) in pairs, having their conversations-to-get-somewhere, other pairs, entering later, would stay separate. The manager was amazed they wouldn’t all congregate together.
Say, I’ve noticed that if a small group conversation is interrupted, the conversation thread is lost, not resumed: As if people weren’t keen to learn or get somewhere.
The flip side to Simone’s student life, is that although her peers were intellectuals, and her boyfriend was Jean-Paul Sarte, she describes the majority of students as frivolous.
My degree was obtained in another ecosystem, in Canada, so maybe when I retire next year I will drive to the States, stop off in a university, and see for myself what things are like.
I might add that Canada too has to test new admissions to see if they have a high school level of composition. Recently it struck me: This testing started just a few years after the admission requirement for a second language was abolished. I wonder if there’s a connection.
November 11, 2021 10:38 PM
Michael Leddy said…
A second language is indeed the way many students learn (in a conscious way) something of the grammar of a first language. So many things contribute to the state of student writing — their reading (or lack of reading), emphasis on mechanical writing models (the five-paragraph essay), the extent to which grammar and usage are matters under discussion, what kind of feedback teachers give. It certainly doesn’t hurt to test the waters in/of a second language.
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Sean Crawford
In the Great White North
January 2022
