Where are students exposed to Philosophy in the K-12 syllabus? Societal changes and the challenge of understanding requires more than the occasional teacher with a philosophical bent waxing lyrical in the classroom. This primary school program looks inspiring and the data, on improved outcomes, is very impressive.

I guess, if there is no formalised program, a clip from ‘The Flying Circus’ would do the trick:

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1500183&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

more about “Philosophy“, posted with vodpod

 

 

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Comments(7)

    • kellimcgraw

    • 16 years ago

    One of the problems with placing strict boundaries around the content of subjects/disciplines – ‘English’ or ‘History’ for example – is that other elements of knowledge are ignored. I see ‘philosophy’ as something which pervades all ‘humanities’ subjects. I certainly talk about philosophy (and history, and art) in my English classroom. The ideas are too connected to do otherwise.

    The Matrix trilogy is a great text to study in an English/Philosophy unit:
    http://www.seekbooks.com.au/book/The-Matrix-and-Philosophy/isbn/9780812695021.htm

  1. Hi Darcy
    Ministry of Silly Walks rules, OK?

    Questioning why is so powerful, all the time. Our campus SOAR and ROAR programs are based in part on reflective philosophy and are starting to garner some DET interest as stage 4 and 5 numeracy results are way above regional norms.

    I still suspect its because my Parrot is not dead, just resting, but I digress.

  2. Hi Darcy

    Yes, I am hopelessly biased because I am hoping to actually teach Philosophy & Ethics in Year 11&12 next year but an investment in a good quality P&E programme/course or better school wide strategy, would be wiser than any (far more expensive) investment in things like ‘managing student behaviour’ and similar, always reactive and uncritical schemes. Sadly, it is still thought of as a ‘soft subject’ and ‘just people talking’ and as such less attractive to the hardened heads of conservative, instrumentalist, feed-the-empty-vessel-than-test, bean-counting model of education we have had for 250 years.

    Having said that, Phil. & Ethics was the second most popular ‘likely choice’ for Humanities subject among the current Year 10 students at our school when looking at their options in Y11. Shame that school admin buggered up the booklet so the course does not actually appear on the enrollable list (can you imagine my rage after working very, very hard to have it included!).

    To me getting kids to think, be creative, confident, consider choices they make, predict outcome, empathise yet argue with depth or reasoning, make ethical choices and question things in their life with an inquisitive mind and confidence (or to paraphrase Socrates to ‘ live an examined life as the only one worth living’) IS, at least to me, the “holy grail” of education. Everything else (exam scores, tests, jobs etc…), falls by the wayside as they won’t remember the test but they will remember for example that challenging, researched and thoughtful argument over a two week period on the question “Would you lie to protect a friend?”.

    While I am certainly keen on ICT (as you can tell :-), I am actually using ICT merely as a vehicle to arrive at this ‘higher’, main aim described above.

    Here is a bit of homework for you:
    Google up Buranda High School in Queensland – you will be amazed!

    Other goodies to start with:
    Stephen Law’s ‘Can children think philosophically’
    http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/12/can-children-think-philosophically.html

    P4C resources list (courtesy of Google)
    http://www.google.com/Top/Society/Philosophy/Philosophy_for_Children/

    Plenty there to start you off…

    If you need a philosophy teacher (with Moodle expertise on the side 🙂 🙂 🙂 you let me know!

    It’s a bugger we live on the other side of the country my friend, I feel we could do a lot of good damage together 🙂

    Take care mate & be bold

    Tomaz
    http://human.edublogs.org

    PS I should really blurt about this stuff in my blog but under the pump a bit at the moment…

  3. […] bookmarks tagged philosophy Philosophy saved by 4 others     xXxAnnaCoraleexXx bookmarked on 08/23/08 | […]

    • darcymoore

    • 16 years ago

    I sometimes see a program or Ad. or ‘pollie’ press statement on TV and it just seems like a spoof even though it is totally serious. Python made us see differently, I suspect, and the Ministry of Silly Walks took it to a whole new level. As an aside, have you ever wondered if ‘Life of Brian’ would have had a more diffiult time being released in the 21st C. than in the late1970s? It is still my fav. MP – even though ‘The Holy Grail’ makes me laugh more, ‘…watery bints lobbing scimitars…’ and all that.

    BTW The Philosophers’ Song could be a text on the course too ;O)

    • darcymoore

    • 16 years ago

    Tomaz, this is one of those cases when the ‘comment’ is better than the rather hasty ‘blog post’. Thanks for your encouragement, links and enthusiasm – much appreciated. I’ll start on my homework straight away.

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