Jim Duncan

From Philosopedia

The Jim Duncan Track at Drake University (renamed Johnny Bright Field in 2006)

Duncan, Jim (deceased )

Duncan, who studied education and philosophy at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, got his first job in the 1930s in nearby Minburn's combined elementary and high school.

In retrospect, some of his students think Duncan mistook Minburn, population 328, for Athens. Instead of one textbook, students were provided with several. In Pinhooker, an unofficial student publication, entries included,

• High school activities focused on sports (for when he arrived Jim Duncan thought he was in Ancient Athens and made us all get involved in discus throwing, shot-puts, and jumping hurdles).
• However, he also was in charge of the school's drama productions, arranged special musical interludes during basketball half-times, and his classes in algebra, geometry, and history utilized several taxtbooks, not just the usual subject textbook. Students were coached to pass Iowa Every Pupil Tests, and one year Minburn High School scored highest of all other schools its size. Several students were chosen by the State University of Iowa to join others who had scored in the top fifty on a test, and they traveled to Iowa City to participate in what was called the Brain Derby. Similarly, students participated in academic contests sponsored by Iowa State in Ames.
• Duncan would teach an idea, give a quiz, make each student give ratiocination for having chosen any wrong answers, and would then re-test the idea. No student was considered "dumb," just someone who had not picked out the correct multiple choice answers, instead choosing what Duncan called "jokers" or almost-right reponses; e.g., The Vice President of the United States in 1937 is (a) Herbert Clark Hoover, (b) Theodore Roosevelt, (c) John N. Garner, (d) Henry Wallace, (e) Warren G. Harding.
• In mathematics, students were encouraged to figure answers quickly in their head rather than write the problems down - if asked "75 times 75," students almost immediately answered 5625 - he showed how when identical numbers ending in 5 were multiplied the answer would always end in 25; add one to 7 and multiply it by the other 7. Students weren't usually required to know why, but 85 times 85 was always 7225. Gothic cathedrals, such as the one in Reims, were built in which century from the 10th to 13th? The Secretary of Agriculture is who? What is a hypoteneuse? What is the state capital of South Dakota?

Upon leaving public school teaching, Duncan became a professor at Drake. As announcer for years of the Drake Relays programs, his voice was one of the best-known in the entire state. Another well-known voice was that of Radio WHO's sports announcer, Ronald "Dutch" Reagan.

At Drake, Duncan taught in the journalism department. Today a Jim Duncan Scholaship is given by the School of Journalism and Mass Communication to students who show outstanding promise in radio-TV performance or production.

His involvement with Drake's track team, in fact, led to the track's being named after him. The Drake Relays are held on Jim Duncan Track in the 18,000-seat Drake Stadium (pictured above).

A former high school student, Warren Allen Smith, has memories of Duncan's visiting him in New York City:

• Duncan had just seen a play about Sir Karl Popper, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. When his wife came to Manhattan to stock her clothing store, Duncan accompanied her but spent his time going to art galleries, museums, and the theatre. On two occasions when we reminisced, he was favorably impressed that a former student of his was one of the elected directors of the Bertrand Russell Society. I was impressed that although he had majored in philosophy I did not recollect his ever having talked about philosophy in his classes. The play he saw was about the famous "poker incident" in 1946, at which Wittgenstein was a Cambridge University philosophy club chairman and had invited Popper. During Popper's speech, to show his disagreement with what the speaker was saying Wittgenstein allegedly and angrily waved a nearby poker that hung in the fireplace (some saying he brandished it and frightened Popper). Bertrand Russell, who had influenced both Popper and Wittgenstein, gives his view in the play as to what happened during those ten minutes. The play's script concerns how disparate the three brilliant philosophers differed in their words and actions.
• Duncan was interested in knowing that I had once joined the Des Moines Unitarians, but it was my understanding that although in Minburn he attended Methodist services (putting a dollar bill rather than nickels and dimes in the collection plate) he did not find it necessary to become active in any of the Des Moines organized churches once he became a college professor. When I mentioned Thomas Jefferson as a Unitarian, Duncan suggested he would better be described a a Deist. When I asked if any philosophic labels described his outlook, he knew I had asked the same of Thomas Mann, George Santayana, and others and was compiling a book in which I would list philosophers, Duncan never specifically responded.

In 2006, the relay track named after Jim Duncan was re-named and is now called Johnny Bright Field.