Searching Together for the Common Good

Offered by Stanford Digital Education through a partnership with the National Education Equity Lab, Searching Together for the Common Good is a Stanford ethics course for students in under-resourced high schools. Students join the tradition of thinkers, from philosophers to artists, who examine what it means to live well and to meet obligations to family, community, nation, and self. The course is based on a long-running residential humanities program at Stanford called Structured Liberal Education (SLE) and was developed by Stanford lecturer Greg Watkins in collaboration with Mike Taubman, ’04, a high school teacher and SLE alum. 

As with other courses in Stanford's dual enrollment program for high schools, students who pass the course earn Stanford credit.

Course goals

In Searching Together for the Common Good, students explore persistent questions in moral philosophy by reading, discussing, and writing about influential texts and films that ask what we ought to do (and not do) and why. Underpinning the course is the conviction that moral philosophy is best understood not as an individual quest, but as a collective undertaking. 

Readings include excerpts from Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Karl Marx, Mengzi, and Gwendolyn Brooks.

A unique hybrid format

Students watch video-recorded lessons, which they discuss and process with each other and their classroom teacher. Greg and the Stanford teaching fellows —  Stanford undergraduates who are taking the same course on campus — meet weekly with participating high school classes over Zoom. High school students report that developing skills of listening and argumentation through seminar-style conversations with Greg and their teachers, high school peers, and Stanford students gives them confidence that they can take on similar challenges in college. (See “At a Brooklyn high school, students ponder big questions in Stanford’s ‘great books’ program.”)

Watch a sample lesson

In the video below, Greg introduces the concept of moral philosophy.

What a week of coursework could involve

• Short video lectures that are best encountered interactively, ideally in class
• Short written responses
• Synchronous Zoom discussions jointly led by the faculty instructor and teaching fellows
• In-person discussions led by the high school teacher
• Individual journal entries
• Homework reading for the following week

Meet the instructor

Greg Watkins, a longtime lecturer in Stanford's Structured Liberal Education program, holds doctorates in humanities and religious studies from Stanford University. He also has a master of fine arts in film production from UCLA, and his undergraduate degree is from Stanford University. 

 

How students feel about the course

In end-of-course surveys, students said that they had grown more interested in connecting questions of moral philosophy with their own lives, that they were more aware that others saw the world in different ways, and that they learned through conversations with peers how their views had been influenced by experiences. They also reported increased comfort with time management and with asking for help, as well as increased confidence in their ability to handle college work.

‘Ever since the SLE course, when I face decisions, what I have learned from the course frequently comes to mind. For example, when I am faced with important choices, I am more aware of my perspective, and its impact.’

— Jordy Almonte, student at Urban Assembly School for Emergency Management who took the course as a sophomore in 2022

What high school teachers say about the course

High school teachers have the opportunity to engage in professional development with Greg in advance of co-teaching the class with him. They share that the experience of teaching the course is positive and meaningful and that the work helps prepare students for college — by developing their abilities to write and analyze, and also by strengthening their sense that they belong in higher education. 

In the video below, teacher Mike Taubman talks about how the course helped his students at Uncommon High School create an intellectual community.

Participating high schools

2021-22

Uncommon Charter High School, Brooklyn, New York

2022-23 

Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice, Bronx, New York; North Star Academy Charter School, Newark, New Jersey; South Valley Academy, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Topeka High School, Topeka, Kansas; Urban Assembly School for Emergency Management, New York

The Topeka Capital-Journal reported on Greg's visit to Topeka High School’s 2024 class. 

2023-24

Boys Academic Leadership Academy, Los Angeles; John F. Kennedy High School, Los Angeles; North Star Academy Charter School, Newark, New Jersey; Sewanhaka High School, Floral Park, New York; South Valley Academy, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Topeka High School, Topeka, Kansas

Contact us

Are you interested in bringing a Stanford course to your Title I (or Title I eligible) high school, collaborating with us, designing a course, or serving as a teaching fellow? Please reach out.

Priscilla Fiden, associate vice provost and chief of staff
Stanford Digital Education
pfiden@stanford.edu

Greg Watkins, lecturer
Stanford University
gwatkins@stanford.edu

Jamie Litton, course coordinator
Stanford University
jlitton@stanford.edu

To speak with high school educators who have taught Searching Together for the Common Good, please contact:

Sara Schafer, teacher
Topeka High School
sschafer@tps501.org

Mike Taubman, teacher
North Star Academy
mike.taubman@northstaracademy.org

Glen Stone’s photo of Topeka High School was accessed on Wikimedia Commons and was used through the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.