Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
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Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
Furthermore, I went decades without philosophy, and have (fairly) recently dove into the subject.
So, should it be taught as part of the curriculum, or kept as an elective? I know underwater basket weaving classes must be kept on the curriculum and cannot be removed ::cough:: politically motivated grooming.
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
Also, isn't studying philosophy in grade school a recipe for teachers (untrained in the discipline) to promote their own brand of propaganda?
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
My view is that serious, considered, thought — which is what philosophy is — should be taught at all levels of education, along with other subjects. Why would/should we not?
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
This is a post-truth response. Distrust of experts, and the right not only to one's opinions, but for one's opinions to be right (correct) too.
Will we close our schools because paedophiles, who are drawn to any job that allows access to children, are likely to try to become teachers? No, we simply try to ensure that our teachers aren't paedophiles, and we trust the rest of them to educate our children.
At some point, trust in others becomes necessary and essential. Philosophy teachers would teach philosophy, just as maths teachers teach maths without brainwashing their pupils into a sinister affinity with algebra.
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
Well that's what what I thought at first, and I argued with philosophy teachers about it for several years, but the fact is, Trump demonstrates empirically that people are incapable of learning how to think if they don't want to. So it might be advocated as a post-truth necessary fact, which is definitely wrong, but as a justified belief, I'd have to say they are right.Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑November 5th, 2022, 11:13 amThis is a post-truth response. Distrust of experts, and the right not only to one's opinions, but for one's opinions to be right (correct) too.
Will we close our schools because paedophiles, who are drawn to any job that allows access to children, are likely to try to become teachers? No, we simply try to ensure that our teachers aren't paedophiles, and we trust the rest of them to educate our children.
At some point, trust in others becomes necessary and essential. Philosophy teachers would teach philosophy, just as maths teachers teach maths without brainwashing their pupils into a sinister affinity with algebra.
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
Here in the U.S., grade school teachers have degrees in education. Most of them have never taken a Philosophy course in their life. So my distrust is not for experts, but of ignorance. (Grade school in the U.S. is grades 1-6, students are 6-11 years old.)Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑November 5th, 2022, 11:13 am
This is a post-truth response. Distrust of experts, and the right not only to one's opinions, but for one's opinions to be right (correct) too.
Will we close our schools because paedophiles, who are drawn to any job that allows access to children, are likely to try to become teachers? No, we simply try to ensure that our teachers aren't paedophiles, and we trust the rest of them to educate our children.
At some point, trust in others becomes necessary and essential. Philosophy teachers would teach philosophy, just as maths teachers teach maths without brainwashing their pupils into a sinister affinity with algebra.
We have enough problems teaching basic literacy, arithmetic, and history. Do you really think rankly amateur philosophers should teach 6 year olds? Wouldn't most of the purported philosophy classes in the Bible Belt end up being Christian? Can ethics be divorced from religion (for many people), and if not is the separation of Church and State an issue?
Of course it's reasonable to teach the basics of logic and critical thinking. Beyond that, we're asking too much of both teachers and young students.
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
There are few teachers with any philosophical education themselves, just as ignorance often exists also in — for example — science, maths and technology. I have even encountered some who express pride that they can't wire an electrical plug. Politically, and culturally too, this may be down to the fact that we don't value teachers, as shown by the relatively poor salaries they receive compared with many other occupations. But now I'm diversifying too much from the topic.
I have encountered very few people who are philosophically educated. These days, education is more and more centred on obtaining profitable employment. I think this is a shame. All education benefits all of us. It percolates throughout our societies. And perhaps philosophy — serious, considered, thought — should be one of the core subjects? I think it should.
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
Has anyone seen the show (it was on Netflix a couple yrs ago) Merlí? It was a Catalan/Spanish series about a philosophy teacher. Whereas some of the storyline was borderline weird, the basis of it was pretty good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merl%C3%AD_(TV_series)
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
Whether we are teachers, parents, or whatever, we pass our own beliefs on to our children. We would be morally derelict if we did not. For each one of us believes that our own beliefs are right, proper, useful, valuable, etc. Therefore, we are morally obliged to pass on these beliefs to the next generation.Marvin_Edwards wrote: ↑November 6th, 2022, 8:41 pm I would want to see the curriculum before exposing any child to philosophy. It seems to me that academic philosophy feels it necessary to catalogue every bad idea along with every good one, without any guidance as to how to discern one from the other. The Hard Determinist, for example, would just as soon rob every child of their free will and undermine responsibility, by spreading the delusion that reliable cause and effect is some kind of prison that one must escape, but cannot. It's a forking horror story. And it is shameful to entrap children in that silly paradox with no logical ladder to climb out.
In this overcrowded world, there are about 8,000,000,000 different sets of beliefs. How can we choose between them? We have no access to an independent and Objective Judge, to whose opinion we might agree to defer. So what? Shall we do as you suggest? Or maybe as I suggest? Or perhaps we should ask Bolsonaro, Putin, or Trump? There are opinions of every shade out there. How shall we choose which of them to pass on to our descendants?
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
- Pattern-chaser
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Re: Should philosophy be a mandatory study in grade school?
Morals and ethics are culturally-defined, but they can still be taught, of course. "Reason"? Yes, that would do; my personal preference is for "serious, considered, thought".
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