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Member: skippersan

CollectionsDecade Project (59), Your library (718), Read but unowned (4), All collections (744)

Reviews12 reviews

TagsPhilosophy (104), Chess (98), Aesthetic Theory (74), History of Thought (36), secondary sources (28), Decade project (26), Literature (19), Law (18), Biography (17), Programming (14) — see all tags

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Groups15th Century Europe, Ancient History, Arab, North African and Middle Eastern Literature, Byzantinistik, Chess, Church History, Cinebooks, Early Reviewers, English History - Tudor through Edwardian, Ethical Theory — show all groups , Existentialism, Hellas, History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture, History: On learning from and writing history, Late Roman, Learning Arabic, Lingua Latina, Medieval Europe, Medieval manuscripts, Military History, Philosophers, Philosophy and Theory, Philosophy of Science, Purely Programmers, Scrabblers, The Middle East, theory on the moondocks

About meI teach philosophy at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas. Over time, I've developed some cranky notions about teaching. One such notion is that "knowledge and skills" are only part of education. The other part is experience. (Oh sure, Dewey also insisted on this, but I figured it out before reading him.) Another notion is that standard outcomes can't measure the quality of learning experiences. What the student does later is the best measure--that is, after spending one semester in my class, will the student ever pick up another philosophy book again? If not, then the experience I provided must have been pretty poor.

So my classes are all about reading and discussing. Not about lecture. Not about testing. I care about what goes in, not what comes out on cue. If something truly goes in and rattles around for a while, you become a different person. So, I'm happy to wait--for years.

I like to teach subjects I've never taught before. That way I get to learn something new. But if I have to teach something familiar, I get my "learning fix" by sitting in on someone else's class.

Since January, 2008, I've plunged into a crazy drive toward full literacy. I have a nice list of about 600 great works of world literature, and I'm plowing through this list at the rate of one work per week. I hope to finish the list in ten years. We'll see. As of August, 2009, I've done pretty well: 82 works in 87 weeks. Visit my "decade project."

Besides philosophy, I love chess. I'm rated about 1700, USCF. I ran an after-school chess club for six years in my town (Wimberley). We had members from first grade through twelfth playing against each other. It was a great way to break down those artificial age barriers the schools create by herding all the kids in one age group into the same rooms all day long.

I also enjoy Scrabble, but haven't been at it as long.

About my libraryI hate paperbacks. I used to collect paperbacks in hopes of one day getting around to reading them. But more than once, I finally decided to read something and all the pages fell out. So, I try to never buy a paperback unless I have no other choice. I still have a lot of paperbacks in my collection, but most of them come from the time before I went on my anti-paperback rampage.

I also hate dust jackets--those gaudy advertisements that hide the true design of the book. So I have removed all the jackets from my library. Does this decrease the resale value of my books? Yes. Fortunately, I don't want to resell them.

Homepagehttp://www.skipperweb.org/Skipperhm/index.shtml

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Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

Real nameRobert Boyd Skipper

LocationWimberley, Texas

Emailrobertskipperweb.org

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Account typepublic, lifetime

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URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/skippersan (profile)
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Member sinceMay 8, 2007