Philosophy Now Forum

Hello everyone!

I have often thought that the benefits of learning Philosophy are so valuable that the subject should be taught to children at school. It is important that from an early age children are taught to question and inquire, to think critically, and to understand and present logical arguments. I genuinely think that if Philosophy was included as part of a child's primary and high school education, the individual and society as a whole will benefit.

For these reasons I have petitioned the UK government to include Philosophy as part of the school curriculum, and if you agree with the idea I would dearly like your support.

Here is the link to the petition -
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/169081

Please sign and share as much as possible.

Note that this is only open to British Citizens and those resident in the UK.

Many thanks for your help. Let's get Philosophy into schools!

99% of philosophy is completely useless and outdated, it needs to be updated to accommodate modern understanding and concepts.

''question and inquire, to think critically, and to understand and present logical arguments.''

Yes, definitely this, but you have to have teachers who can think critically. Unfortunately Govts. don't want thinkers and questioners--they want malleable, easily-manipulated drones.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:''question and inquire, to think critically, and to understand and present logical arguments.''

Yes, definitely this, but you have to have teachers who can think critically. Unfortunately Govts. don't want thinkers and questioners--they want malleable, easily-manipulated drones.

The problem is also age, as in maturity, to be able to comprehend and form these kinds of thoughts and philosophies. Not every student is capable at every age and some are never able to do so. For too many it would just be wasted, so possibly the best approach is to offer it as an elective with no restriction on minimum class size, and if too many sign up for it, offer more classes.

Normal children need to start being taught metaphysics at the age of 3 at the latest.

When they begin asking "why?" to every answer, this is a metaphysical question and they need answers they can understand.

But even at much younger ages they should be taught the fundamental aspects of scientific metaphysics and especially scientific observation. This must be reinforced and expanded all through their school careers.

Of course schools quit teaching critical thinking years ago so this would have to change first.

teach them to be radical skeptics...

"Welcome to class Timmy, I'm Mrs. Winkledoozer"

"I doubt it"

-Imp

cladking wrote:Normal children need to start being taught metaphysics at the age of 3 at the latest.

When they begin asking "why?" to every answer, this is a metaphysical question and they need answers they can understand.

But even at much younger ages they should be taught the fundamental aspects of scientific metaphysics and especially scientific observation. This must be reinforced and expanded all through their school careers.

Of course schools quit teaching critical thinking years ago so this would have to change first.

A reasonable "why" should indeed be answered, but often a "why" is just another form of "what if' and to that "because I said so" is the proper response.

Schools in an effort to stop unnecessary questioning have adopted a policy that stops all questioning by presenting information as if what was being taught is all there is to know on a particular subject.

Impenitent wrote:teach them to be radical skeptics...

"Welcome to class Timmy, I'm Mrs. Winkledoozer"

"I doubt it"

-Imp

I was the younger teacher in a study hall in one of my first years of teaching. The other teacher was reading the roll of the students and came to the name of a student who's given name looked like a shortened version of a longer name. The other teacher insisted on calling the student by the longer name, even when the student protested and claimed that the short version was her actual given name. Luckily we had the study hall on alternate weeks and I was able to use the students real name when I was in charge of the class, I don't remember what her reaction was, I just hope it was positive.