Modes of Thinking

Let us start with an experiment at Harvard University in 1990, when Alan Dershowitz, professor of law, sat in on his colleague Stephen Gould’s class. You see, Gould is a professor of paleontology, and when Dershowitz attended his class, he quickly realized that he viewed problems differently than Gould, and perhaps this was a very good thing. Thus, Dershowitz mobilized to get himself and Gould in the same lecture hall together, but as we know, odds are better than evens, particularly when it comes to perspective and insights. They invited a third party, philosopher Robert Nozick.

While the genesis of the course happened by accident, it happened by inquiry and perspective, and it challenged the status quo by bringing multiple contrasting perspectives to light. It moved the discussion away from content to big ideas and understandings. Each professor saw things differently, whether by implicit bias, personal experience or a trained set of preferences due to their respective content and disciplines. A cross-section of students, many of whom were not enrolled, and fellow professors flocked to the hall to hear the three academics present their findings on a weekly basis. They gathered because the discourse challenged the audience to think differently.