Best Practices: What Should We Do? Inviting Students into Political Theory through Action

Abstract

Teaching political theory promises better thinkers, better community members, and better democratic citizens. Teaching political theory in a community of learning is often especially rewarding as the lived community experience of the campus becomes food for thought and a site of action. As an assistant professor beginning my first job, my challenge was to design an introductory course that would be compelling to students highly interested in contemporary politics and activism and less excited about theoretical inquiry and ultimate questions. I needed to develop a political theory course for a theory-shy audience. This is the story of a political theory course thematically centered on action. In a world impatient with thought and much more appreciative of the virtues of action, or at least activity, it is possible to invite students into the study of thought by focusing on the question of action. ______________________________________________________________________________ The Invitation he guiding question of this class is What should we do? This question effectively serves as an invitation to the student to enter into a semester-long discussion with the readings, other students, and me. This guiding question presupposes three questions that are fundamental to the study of the humanities: