Your first week abroad is a flurry of activity and excitement. You wake up every day eager to get out and explore. Oxford is magical. It’s hard to escape the allure of heading out among the spires to find something new. After a week of exploring, however, college life encroaches. You have books to read, lectures to attend, quizzes to take, and papers to write. Walking around the house, it is clear that this reality is setting in for my students.
It is setting in for me as well. I have little to report today of rambles and curious happenings around the city. I walked to city centre today with a clear agenda in mind: find myself the best wool hiking socks I could find, and moleskin to address the blisters on my foot that I fear will derail my ramble. I found the socks at an outdoor clothing store in city centre. I’ve never spent £18 on a single pair of socks before. Today I bought two pair at that price. If $40 will buy me assurance that I can complete the ramble, that’s money well spent. I had more difficulty finding moleskin, but when I mentioned it to Jacque she popped into the Study Abroad storage room and pulled out a package. That room is amazing. It’s like a Harry Potter wonderland. Ask Jacque for it, and it is there. It is magic. She’s like Mary Poppins.
Okay I’m mixing up my stories. Let’s stop that. I taught both of my ethics classes today. Early on my goal in my ethics courses is to get students talking to me and one another, to get accustomed to making moral claims, to justify these claims, and to listen to the claims and arguments of others. Today went well, I think, My experience with ACU students over the years has been good with respect to their willingness to listen and engage one another earnestly and respectfully. I expect the same thing with these students.
Classes ended late afternoon, at which point we retreated to the kitchen to celebrate Matthew’s birthday. Happy 21st, Matthew!
My final note from today on a shorter-than-normal post: one of my students introduced me to an intriguing party game entitled, “Trial by Trolley.” The game is a riff on the trolley problem, a philosophical thought experiment first proposed by Oxford philosopher Philippa Foot. For class today, students read the first chapter of Michael Sandel’s book, Justice: What’s the Right Thing To Do. Sandel explores different iterations of the trolley problem in the book, so I was happy that my student shared the game with me. I’m curious to play it to see if it is simply a fun party game or if there might be pedagogical possibilities latent in the play. I’m always look for active learning strategies in the ethics classroom.
Tomorrow I head from Abingdon to Wallingford! Yesterday’s 11-mile ramble took more out of Tara than she was expecting, so I anticipate I’ll be completing tomorrow’s leg solo. More to come…
Return home…
Back to socks. I ask for one thing every Christmas: Smart wool socks. I’m wearing them right now! Socks as gift brings more pleasure as we age.