Political Science Educator: volume 29, issue 1
Reflections
By Titus Alexander (titusa03@gmail.com)
Socrates taught in ancient Athens but never published anything. Yet we imitate him today, over 2,000 years later, because his student Plato and generations of teachers adopted his method of asking questions to guide inquiry.
Any pattern of behavior that is replicated or adapted by others and spreads by example, champions, and organizations is a social model. All patterns of behavior and institutions that continue over time are models of how to do things in society, as well as real-time experiments in response to changing circumstances (Alexander 2025). The Socratic method, like apprenticeships and rote learning to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), work as one of many models of teaching developed over time. Models of institutions for teaching developed from Plato’s Academy into modern universities and online learning platforms, specializing in analytical knowledge, which Plato’s student Aristotle called episteme. Aristotle also applied Socrates’s ideas about virtue and a good life to develop the concept of practical wisdom, phronesis, the ability to take the best course of action in a specific situation by combining sound judgement with intelligence based on experience. He contrasted phronesis with both episteme, conceptual knowledge, and techne, craft or instrumental ability, considering it essential for politics and statecraft, as well as household management. We possess fewer models for teaching practical wisdom than for academic or technical education, yet humanity needs practical wisdom more than ever. By treating social models as everyday experiments and embodiments of knowledge about how to make things happen in society, scholars can increase the impact of teaching in political science and contribute to the greater good of society.
Societies develop by replicating, imitating, adapting, and innovating models of how to do things at all levels, from behaviors such as a handshake, salute or taking the knee, to elected assemblies, states, and institutions of global governance. Social scientists can help people improve their social models by enhancing everyday knowledge and practical wisdom through teaching from their reality. This means valuing teaching as a form of scholarship, as Socrates did. All teachers and learners participate in everyday social experiments and ‘dynamic theories’ about what and how to learn. Students bring fresh eyes and inquiring minds to subjects, vital for new knowledge, problem solving, and innovation. Their interaction with a teachers’ experience and knowledge, as well as contemporary challenges, create new insights and possibilities.
Developing these possibilities is a form of action-research. Many teachers and scholars are already engaged in it, often without the recognition, funding, and support they deserve. We should give these teachers their proper recognition by calling them by their proper name: teacher-scholar. Publishing reviews of exemplary models and their impact is useful for learning and developing citizenship. But demonstration projects (real-time models) are more influential than publications, however readable, well-researched and rigorous. Publications struggle to convey the nuances, tacit knowledge, judgements and dynamics that make a particular method or model work. Communities of practice, dissemination workshops, roadshows and support networks can share lessons through experience and stories much better than publications, which are more useful as reminders than forms of communication.
Teaching political skills and evidence-based knowledge about political problems, potential solutions, and policy options based on analysis of existing models also make an important contribution (for example, Kelly 2022 or Badgett 2025). Teacher-scholars who develop skills for democracy can help people transform their communities. One powerful demonstration of this is the Scandinavian folk high school movement. It started in 1844, when the Danish educator, scholar, and pastor Nikolaj Grundtvig founded a residential college modelled on his experience of Trinity College in England and Condorcet’s 1792 Report on the General Organization of Public Instruction (Condorcet 1804). Folk high schools foster a democratic culture through a collegial relationship between teachers and students in a residential setting over a few months. Adults from all social backgrounds learn core values, history, the constitution and other subjects to become engaged citizens. People bond through music, storytelling and fun (Broadbridge et al, 2012).[1] There are no exams. The model spread rapidly and influenced Scandinavia’s nation states (Nordvall 2009) and two centuries of remarkable economic and political development (Schön 2008). Many other countries adapted it, including Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, founded in 1932, attended by Martin Luther King Junior, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Rosa Parks. It still provides education for people to “take collective action to shape their own destiny” (Duncan 2005: 9; Horton, 1989). Folk high schools still serve a high proportion of adults of all ages in Nordic countries, which are consistently ranked the happiest in the world[2] and in the top five on the Human Development Index.[3]
Teacher-scholars should be equally ambitious. Outcomes for each learner should be life enhancing and potentially life changing, equipping them to make constructive contributions to society throughout life. To achieve this clarity of purpose is essential (Blaich et al. 2016; Hativa 2001; Schroeder 2002).
The starting point for any lesson and course should be framed as a question, which may come from a student or the teacher. John Dewey’s theory of learning — involving reflecting on experience and skills of inquiry, testing hypotheses, active engagement within a social context and a democratic process — is more likely to create meaningful learning than a content-led curriculum (Dewey 1904, 1916; Garrison et al. 2012). To develop the knowledge needed to understand politics, teachers also need to inspire curiosity and cultivate skills for finding, assessing, and assimilating knowledge from anthropology, history, economics, government, society, and other academic disciplines. Since Dewey, humanity has created a vast vortex of knowledge through artificial intelligence, the internet, social media, broadcasting, thinktanks, and access to online events anywhere in the world. To navigate this fluctuating students also need emotional intelligence, a moral compass, sense of purpose, good questions, and what Ernest Hemingway called a “built-in shock-proof crap detector” (quoted in Postman & Weingartner 1969). Healthy skepticism, the habit of questioning sources, honest fact checkers and willingness to seek out differing views are essential for deeper learning.
To increase effectiveness and real-world benefits of teaching we need to embed more systematic feedback and evaluation into all learning activities. This means going beyond satisfaction surveys and assessment to evaluate the contribution of every element of each model to understand their short, medium, and longer-term impacts. This is not easy. There are numerous models of evaluation in both private sector training and higher education, such as Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of evaluation (Kirkpatrick 1993, 2016), Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Method[4], or Thalheimer’s eight level Learning Transfer Evaluation Model (LTEM)[5] (Thalheimer 2018). These are not yet used effectively to influence practice or outcomes. We now have the capacity to collect and analyze data at scale and in depth to identify the impact of different learning activities. This has risks, but with suitable safeguards a large-scale system could enable students, teachers and course leaders to input their specific objectives for learning and then get relevant feedback, while anonymizing evidence could generate aggregate data. There are dangers that evaluation is reduced to crude metrics, such as test results, learners’ lifetime income, patents, honors, return on investment, rather than wellbeing and quality of life, so it is important that teacher-scholars lead the process together with learners and other stakeholders. Done well, feedback to teacher-scholars and education leaders would enhance practice and transform models of provision.
Teacher-scholars must be pluralistic in their use of pedagogical models and embed evaluation and reflection into practice at every level to refine and enrich the joy of learning to make the world work better for everyone. Different models are better for different purposes, from apprenticeships to service learning, study circles or MOOCs. Each format includes many techniques (micro-models), such as icebreakers, study buddies, co-coaching, case-studies, flash cards, quizzes, projects, presentations, action learning circles[6], and web quests. Everyday experiments of institutional models for improving teaching practices– such as conferences, in-service training, web portals, the use of texts, and communities of practice–can all be enhanced through better evaluation.
Recognizing universities as spaces for dynamic theories and real-time experiments also gives teacher-scholars a potential role in enhancing citizens’ everyday knowledge and skills to take part in democratic politics, including:
- The Socratic method, publicly asking questions to examine assumptions, consequences, implications, evidence and alternatives to prevailing ideas and policies, as well as questions about what is a good society, morality, justice, and wisdom.
- Interdisciplinary collaboration, contributing courses to other disciplines (so that students in all subjects have a better understanding of politics), democratic norms, human rights, the rule of , and ethics.
- Strengthening democracy through public civic education, folk high schools, trustworthy news media, legal advocacy, workplace democracy, deliberative assemblies and other innovations to enable all citizens to take part in collective governance, solve problems and create a good society for all.
This wider role is particularly important when academic and democratic freedoms are eroded by authoritarians almost everywhere. Civil liberties, pluralistic politics, the impartial rule of law, and respect for evidence are essential for good governance. Like many academic disciplines, political scientists can develop tunnel vision, focusing on narrow specialisms. We should not be afraid of challenging dubious arguments and falsehoods, or providing evidence of corruption, failings in political systems, and working with citizens to create better models of democratic decision-making. But we should avoid partisanship and include a wider range of perspectives, including lessons from history[7] and analysis from conservative, liberal, libertarian, communitarian, socialist, Buddhist, Confucian, Vedic, and other traditions to get deeper insights.
Academic leaders can also learn about how to promote democratic engagement from influential communities of practice in other disciplines. Perhaps the most successful is the Atlas Network[8] of scholars and practitioners inspired by the work of Friedrich Hayek (1941, 1944) that promotes free enterprise and the market economy through almost 500 think tanks in over 100 countries. Teacher-scholars should not champion political parties or ideologies, except as citizens completely independent from their academic work. But they should work with citizens and policymakers to strengthen democratic mechanisms, develop political skills, and remove barriers to participation as non-partisan scholars assisting society to create the best possible models of government for a specific time, place and population.
To conclude, the main message of this paper is that by treating institutions and patterns of behavior as “dynamic social theories” and experiments, teacher-scholars can improve models of teaching to help citizens, practitioners and policymakers improve institutions of democratic governance. Even if we disagree with Socrates’s ideas, his method of dialogue and critical thinking still have a role in education, together with Aristotle’s phronesis, the practical rationality required for good governance. We live in difficult times, with no easy answers, but teacher-scholars of politics have a vital role in equipping people to solve social problems better.
Endnotes
[1] See 10 minute interview with Professor Edward Broadbridge: https://youtu.be/cy2f4RnStlg
[2] https://wellbeingintl.org/world-happiness-report-2025/
[3] https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks
[4] https://www.watershedlrs.com/blog/learning-evaluation/brinkerhoff-method/
[5] https://masterplan.com/en-blog/measure-training-effects-learning-transfer-evaluation-model
[6] https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1JaPU8cwx46tKrD6edQuElHGV3fQekuO1KofoF8uoz6g/edit
[7] E.g. Applied History Project at Harvard https://www.belfercenter.org/programs/applied-history-project/about-applied-history-project; History and Policy website: https://historyandpolicy.org/ and Crowcroft, Robert, Editor (2022) Applied History and Contemporary Policymaking: School of Statecraft, London: Bloomsbury Academic
[8] https://www.atlasnetwork.org/
[10] https://democracynetwork.org.uk/
[11] http://www.democracymatters.org.uk/
[12] http://www.oneworldtrust.org/publications/doc_view/14-charter-99?tmpl=component&format=raw
[13] https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Zlk7gv6juhdkdRVjlfbzJUQ3M
[14] http://www.democracymatters.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Campaign-Roadshow-Report-2009.pdf
[15] https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5Zlk7gv6juhd05MQXBJdTFPdUU
[16] https://www.demos.co.uk/files/familylearning.pdf
[17] https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Unravelling-Global-Apartheid-by-Titus-Alexander/9780745613536
References
Alexander, Titus. 2021. “Political Science and the Democratic Method: How Higher Education Can Strengthen Democracy at Scale.” APSA Preprints. doi: 10.33774/apsa-2021-7lhts
Alexander, Titus. 2023. “Unwrapping the McDonald’s Model: An Introduction to Dynamic Social Theory.” The Journal of American Culture 46: 232–241. DOI: 10.1111/jacc.13467
Alexander, Titus. 2025. “Social models as dynamic theories: how to improve the impact of social and political sciences.” Frontiers in Political Science 6, April 30. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2024.1443388
Badgett, M.V. Lee. 2015. The Public Professor: How To Use Your Research to Change the World. New York University Press
Blaich, C., Wise, K., Pascarella, E. T., & Roksa, J. 2016. “Instructional Clarity and Organization: It’s Not New or Fancy, But It Matters.” Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning 48(4): 6–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2016.1198142
Broadbridge, Edward, Warren, C., Jonas, E., Eds. 2012. School for Life: N F S Grundtvig on the Education for the People. Aarhus University Press
Condorcet, J. A. N. 1804. Oeuvres completes de Condorcet: Sur l’instruction publique. chez Vieweg. (in French)
Condorcet, J. d. C. 1976. Condorcet: selected writings. United Kingdom: Bobbs-Merrill.
Dewey, John. 1904. The relations of theory to practice in the education of teachers. Chicago, University of Chicago.
Dewey, John. 1916. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York: Macmillan.
Duncan, Joyce Denise. 2005. Historical Study of The Highlander Method: Honing Leadership for Social Justice. East Tennessee State University Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons.
Garrison, J. W., Neubert, S., Reich, K. 2012. John Dewey’s philosophy of education: An introduction and recontextualization for our times. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hativa, N. 2001. 8: “Clarity in Teaching in Higher Education: Dimensions and Classroom Strategies.” To Improve the Academy 19: 131-148. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2334-4822.2001.tb00528.x
Hayek, Friedrich. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. London: George Routledge & Sons.
Hayek, Friedrich. 1941. The Pure Theory of Capital. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Horton, A. I. 1989. The Highlander Folk School: A history of its major programs, 1932-1961. Brooklyn: Carlson Publishing.
Kelly, Wade, Ed. 2022. The Impactful Academic: Building a Research Career That Makes a Difference. Bingley: Emerald Publishing
Kirkpatrick, Don. 1993. Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels, 1st Edition, Berrett-Koehler.
Kirkpatrick, James, & Kirkpatrick, Wendy Kayser. 2016. Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation. ATD Press.
Nordvall, Henrik. 2009. Literature on the Folk High Schools: A Selected Bibliography. Linköping university.
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Schön, Lennart. 2008. “Sweden – Economic Growth and Structural Change, 1800-2000”. EH.Net Encyclopaedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10. https://eh.net/encyclopedia/sweden-economic-growth-and-structural-change-1800-2000/
Schroeder, C. C. 2002. “Clarity of Purpose.” About Campus: Enriching the Student Learning Experience, 7(4): 1. https://doi.org/10.1177/108648220200700401
Thalheimer, W. 2018. “The learning-transfer evaluation model: Sending messages to enable learning effectiveness.” https://www.worklearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Thalheimer-The-Learning-Transfer-Evaluation-Model-Report-for-LTEM-v12.pdf
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Titus Alexander is an independent teacher and scholar, and Honorary Fellow at the Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics. He studied Maths, Physics and Intellectual History at the University of Sussex (UK) and philosophy of language at Marburg (Germany). His latest book, Practical Politics: Lessons in Power and Democracy[9] (2017, UCL IoE Press/Trentham) is an introduction to teaching democratic politics. He runs Leading Change, an advanced apprenticeship in campaigning and leadership, is co-chair of the UK Democracy Network[10], and founder of Democracy Matters[11], an alliance for learning practical politics. He led the Charter 99 for Global Democracy[12] campaign and Uniting Humanity, an EU Grundtvig trainer of trainers’ programme in global citizenship. Other publications include Discussing Democracy[13] (2015 Crick Centre), Campaigning is OK![14] (2009), Learning Power[15] (2007), Family Learning: The Foundation of Effective Education[16] (Demos 1997), Citizenship Schools: A practical guide (2001), and Unravelling Global Apartheid: An overview of world politics[17] (Polity/Blackwell’s, 1996).
Published since 2005, The Political Science Educator is the newsletter of the Political Science Education Section of the American Political Science Association. As part of APSA’s mission to support political science education across the discipline, APSA Educate has republished The Political Science Educator since 2021. Please visit APSA Educate’s Political Science Educator digital collection.
Editors: Colin Brown (Northeastern University), Matt Evans (Northwest Arkansas Community College)
Submissions: editor.PSE.newsletter@gmail.com
