Welcoming Opposition: Havruta Learning and Montaigne’s The Art of Discussion

Abstract

Michel de Montaigne’s L’art de Conférer offers a moral groundwork for students’ learning of havruta, a traditional Jewish form of studying in pairs, based on collaborative critical text-based learning, that can be applied to students everywhere. The article attends to the nature of havruta learning and to cultural norms that make it difficult for students to become open to their partners’ opposing ideas. Students’ critical discussion of Montaigne’s essay is then conceptualized as a pedagogical tool for cultivating the welcoming of opposing viewpoints and opening their own ideas to critical scrutiny in text- and discussion-based learning. I draw on Wolfgang Iser’s theory of reading as bringing the reader into deeper self-consciousness and calling into question implicit beliefs about the role of opposing ideas. The article provides an analysis of Montaigne’s ideas and includes study questions to help students adopt a more constructive attitude toward opposing views and expand their understanding of the role of the confrontation of ideas in learning discussions.

Keywords:

• Havruta learning
• Montaigne
• text-based learning
• ideas confrontation.

Notes

1. See Sève, 2007, p. 228, n. 1. Jean Porteau claims that the title Conférer is not to be understood as the art of holding a conversation; rather, Porteau asserts that the verb conférer is a technical term which means controverser. He offers as a synonym disputare, which belongs to the technical language of disputation; it refers to the art of leading methodical discussions or debates. At the very least, it means that conversation implies an argumentative component; see Porteau, 1935, p. 271. Montaigne addresses educational matters in his Essays thematically (e.g. Book I, Chapters 24 and 25) as well as part of other topics such as in Book II, Chapter 7, which discusses the affection of fathers toward their children; and Book II, Chapter 10, on the role of books.

2. The students in these traditional schools are generally male.