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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA 2008 law requires ALL Brazilian high school students to study PHILOSOPHY for 3 years!
Getting out of the cave and seeing things as they really are: thats what philosophy is about, according to Almira Ribeiro. Ribeiro teaches the subject in a high school in Itapuã, a beautiful, poor, violent neighborhood on the periphery of Salvador, capital of the state of Bahia in Brazils northeast. She is the most philosophically passionate person Ive ever met.
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But seeing things as they really are isnt enough, Ribeiro insists. As in Platos parable in The Republic, the students must go back to the cave and apply what theyve learned. Their lives give them rich opportunities for such application. The contrast between the new luxury hotels along the beach and Itapuãs overcrowded streets gives rise to questions about equality and justice. Children kicking around a can introduce a discussion about democracy: football is one of the few truly democratic practices here; success depends on merit, not class privilege. Moving between philosophy and practice, the students can revise their views in light of what Plato, Hobbes, or Locke had to say about equality, justice, and democracy and discuss their own roles as political agents.
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The official rationale for the 2008 law is that philosophy is necessary for the exercise of citizenship. The lawthe worlds largest-scale attempt to bring philosophy into the public spherethus represents an experiment in democracy. Among teachers at least, many share Ribeiros hope that philosophy will provide a path to greater civic participation and equality. Can it do even more? Can it teach students to question and challenge the foundations of society itself?
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But can philosophy really become part of ordinary life? Wasnt Socrates executed for trying? Athenians didnt thank him for guiding them to the examined life, but instead accused him of spreading moral corruption and atheism. Plato concurs: Socrates failed because most citizens just arent philosophers in his view. To make them question the beliefs and customs they were brought up in isnt useful because they cant replace them with examined ones. So Socrates ended up pushing them into nihilism. To build politics on a foundation of philosophy, Plato concludes, doesnt mean turning all citizens into philosophers, but putting true philosophers in charge of the citylike parents in charge of children. I wonder, though, why Plato didnt consider the alternative: If citizens had been trained in dialectic debate from early onsay, starting in high schoolmight they have reacted differently to Socrates? Perhaps the Brazilian experiment will tell.
http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.1/carlos_fraenkel_brazil_teaching_philosophy.php
Lost-in-FL
(7,093 posts)Sounds like a great idea. However, I don't think it would work here. Let's face it, some states are teaching creationism as science so imagine philosophy. I had to suffer the agony of reading St Augustine's 'Confessions' and St Aquinas "Summa Theologica" as a Master course, imagine me reading that in HS
?
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)Lost-in-FL
(7,093 posts)It takes a certain type of teacher to teach philosophy. I am glad they can enjoy their lectures.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)I am very pleased to see a country which encourages thought, rather than our current system. Why can't this work here?
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)Teaching philosophy from a historical perspective is probably a poor idea, since much of the philosophical writings of early philosophers are considered to be invalid by later philosophers.
And then there is the encroachment of social, biological and physical sciences, as well as information theory and theory of computation on philosophical topics. Philosophers are not much better than theologian in agreeing on a systematic modern synthesis.
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)Lost-in-FL
(7,093 posts)A program can be written to include elements of philosophy to teach a few basic lessons. One example was already given in the article, the implications of Plato's Cave. Other basic ideas or teaching could also include the theories of Pre-Socratics philosophers (for example The Atomists) who spoke of atoms centuries before the discovery of a microscope. Or Heraclitus for another example, how everything is in constant change, etc. Hypatia (one of the first women philosophers?), etc. etc.
I am not a teacher but, IMO there is a lot they can learn from philosophy.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)There is no value in recapitulating the errors and successes of the past, when the errors are known and the successes were accidental. What should be taught is the current view of philosophical topics, not a study of the writings of dead, mostly white, mostly male, and often wrong philosophers.
We don't teach phlogiston theory on the way to introducing the physics of heat and thermodynamics. We no longer describe an "ether" though which electromagnetic waves propagate.
NYC Liberal
(20,138 posts)Being a Catholic school, it started with Socrates, Plato, etc. but gradually leaned toward the Catholic philosophers and proofs for the existence of God. Nonetheless, we had a very good teacher and we spent a lot of time in class debating the merits of those arguments - both their strengths and their faults.
Everyone should take a philosophy class because, regardless of its immediate practical use, it teaches you to think critically; that helps in every single area of life. And it's not like we have too much critical thinking in this country!
burrowowl
(17,656 posts)Catholic of course and it was a good thing, even took philosophy as an elective in college.
I America I think we should we should reinstate the teaching of civics and go from there.
Sgent
(5,857 posts)and had a brief overview of it in a general humanities class in HS. I also had a bit of logic in one of miscellaneous topics math classes.
I don't know about three years of it, but I could easily see one year of it at the HS level. Area's I would include would be:
Logic
Philosophy of knowledge (esp. Philosophy of Science / Scientific Method)
General topics on various of the "greats"
Ethical Philosophy (Unitarian, other theories underlying ethical thought).