Keith M. Parsons Professor of Philosophy at University of Houston-Clear Lake

Message to My Freshman Students

Posted: 05/14/2015 5:41 pm EDT Updated: 05/26/2015 11:59 am EDT

For the first time in many years I am teaching a freshman course, Introduction to Philosophy. The experience has been mostly good. I had been told that my freshman students would be apathetic, incurious, inattentive, unresponsive and frequently absent, and that they would exude an insufferable sense of entitlement. I am happy to say that this characterization was not true of most students. Still, some students are often absent, and others, even when present, are distracted or disengaged. Some have had to be cautioned that class is not their social hour and others reminded not to send text messages in class. I have had to tell these students that, unlike high school, they will not be sent to detention if they are found in the hall without a pass, and that they are free to leave if they are not interested. Actually, I doubt that the differences between high school and university have ever been adequately explained to them, so, on the first class day of next term, I will address my new freshmen as follows:

Read what he wrote to them here.

 

Our everyday affairs require many different brain functions that seem to occur simultaneously. Recently, neuroscientists from the University of Amsterdam and Duke University tested the human brain’s ability to handle two tasks in quick succession: learning new information and recalling information already learned. Brain scans showed that a “switchboard” region in the frontal lobe seems responsible for fluidly and rapidly shifting between learning and remembering to avoid a bottleneck in our neural circuitry.

Give Peace A Chance
John Lennon And The Plastic Ono Band

Two, one two three four
Ev’rybody’s talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m.

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

c’mon
Ev’rybody’s talking about Ministers,
Sinisters, Banisters and canisters
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes,
And bye bye, bye byes.

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Let me tell you now
Ev’rybody’s talking about
Revolution, evolution, masturbation,
Flagellation, regulation, integrations,
Meditations, United Nations,
Congratulations.

Ev’rybody’s talking about
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper,
Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer,
Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna,
Hare, Hare Krishna