Guest Post: Why Every Teacher Should Be a Philosophy Teacher
By Andrew DeBella
During his short five years as an educator, Andrew has taught ELA in all grades 9-12, including both advanced and co-taught IEP sections. In addition, Andrew created the Journalism and Creative Writing curriculum for his school - alongside an online publication for students, www.owassorampage.com. When Andrew is not teaching or writing, he’s traveling, spending time with his 18 month old daughter, or playing the drums
Publications:
Andrew DeBella: What teaching has taught me about today's polarizing political climate
In a perfect world, the curriculum we teach our students just clicks, there’s that ‘lightbulb’ moment where they not only understand the objective but they’ve applied it to other subjects as well. This is the interdisciplinary dream that we strive for, but if we want this to be a norm, teachers may need to add one more title to their ever growing list of professions: philosopher.
By teaching key elements of philosophy - a discipline that’s largely ignored in high schools - teachers establish a framework for student understanding, investment, and future learning. This approach allows students to make connections to every subject and see how they are all actually interwoven. Moreover, integrating philosophy in all core subjects will promote lifelong thinkers and develop natural curiosity (1) - by way of the Socratic Method - in our students, instilling in them a yearning for knowledge.
Using a philosophical approach to learning that emphasizes critical thinking, moreover, will not only give students an incentive to learn, but will further increase test scores, college admission, and overall GPA. (2) Further, Philosophy advocates meta-cognition in our students, an irrefutable life and academic skill. This self-reflective thinking “encourages students to think about their education as a whole (3),” allowing them to align Philosophy with their own principles and thus incentivizing them to continue practicing this skill well after traditional schooling.
Image from Pixabay
Pragmatic Implementation: How Does this Look in a Real Classroom?
Math - Philosophical discipline: logic and critical thinking
One of the most voiced frustrations in math from our students is the lack of real world application. They see a myriad of letters and numbers but can’t concretize how they are actually applied. This frustration often deters our students from becoming truly invested and disinterests them from STEM fields. Though, learning the philosophy of math might actually help students draw connections and finally understand the why for this subject. For example, implementing truth trees, syllogisms, and logic puzzles will help students see how the algebraic thinking that’s used in math can be used in every discipline.
Introduction to the Philosophy of Math
Lesson Plans
I. Have students create unique syllogisms in pairs for their partners to solve for real life practicals in deductive and inductive reasoning.
ii. Using numbers as representations of ideas, have students create real world problems that need algebraic equations to solve.
iii. Students can create ‘truth trees’ by taking famous speeches or tweets and representing the arguments in algebraic shorthand.
Science - Philosophical discipline: morality and social issues of science
Science isn’t simply the memorization of facts, formulas, and processes, it’s understanding what to do with that information when we have it. For example, through the scientific method we conclude that our depletion of natural resources can be detrimental to our environment. So, let’s have our students debate the ethical questions that follow: how do we reduce our biological impact on the earth? What and how much should we be allowed to take from the earth? Is it ethical to eat animals? Raising these questions for our students allows them to truly see the why in science, further pushing them to apply their knowledge of science to real life scenarios.
Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
Lesson Plans
i. Scientific ethics - example: ethics of cloning, GMO’s, depletion of natural resources.
ii. Scientific inquiry as Socratic method - using questioning techniques to arrive at truth.
iii. What does it mean to be conscious? Compare Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” to the modern view of consciousness in Neuroscience.
History - Philosophical discipline: aesthetics and ethics
The narratives we retell in our history class are just that - narratives created by people. Have students dive deeper into understanding history by being critical of these stories, examining biases, and engaging in ethical debates about history’s most famous, or infamous, characters. The philosophical ideas and texts will simply serve as the foundation in which to have these discussions and further invest your students in the classroom.
Introduction the Philosophy of History
Lesson Plans
i. Exploring major disciplines of thought and how they influenced social norms.
ii. Applying philosophical concepts/texts to real historical examples. (Example weighing the decisions of political leaders to Machiavelli's The Prince.)
iii. Analyzing art history’s relationship to culture. (Example: what the aesthetic value of the pyramid implied about ancient Egyptian civilizations)
iv. Engaging in class debates about the ethics of historical figures.
v. Examining biases in the way authors tell the stories of the past - have students study a piece of history through the lens of various sources to recognize biases.
English - Philosophical discipline: rhetoric, fallacies
The study of rhetoric is often implemented in the advanced English courses for high school, since rhetorical analysis is still a question on the AP Language exam. All teachers, though, can integrate these ideas to further engage students in the texts. There is nothing a student likes more than to win an argument, and that’s exactly what these rhetorical devices and fallacies can do. Equip your students with the verbal ammunition to win any argument, and as an added bonus, construct better arguments in both their writing and their conversations about the assigned reading.
Lesson Plans
i. Identifying ethos, pathos, logos in ads, speeches, and literature.
ii. Recognizing logical fallacies in literature and everyday life (example: fallacies in Brutus, Antony’s speech in Caesar. Fallacies in television/internet ads.)
iii. Examining literature through a philosophical lens by pairing texts with classic literature for synthesis, compare/contrast, and argumentative. Example: Have students read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 to discuss the underlying understanding of epistemology.
Conclusion
Provided that all core teachers were to implement some form of philosophical discipline in their classroom, teachers could then draw parallels to the students’ other classes, showing the students just how interconnected this wealth of knowledge truly is - the math instructor teaching syllogisms to show how English uses similar logic with arguments, the history professor engaging in ethical debates about science, and so on. This interdisciplinary method to education will show students that these are not simply classes that have no use outside of themselves, but that they are all important to becoming well-rounded critical thinkers.
References
Burgh, Gilbert & O'Brien, M.. (2002). Philosophy and Education: Integrating Curriculum, Teaching and Learning. Critical and Creative Thinking. 10. 45-58.
Lombardi, A. R., Kowitt, J. S., & Staples, F. E. (2014). Correlates of Critical Thinking and College and Career Readiness for Students With and Without Disabilities. Career Development and Transition for Exceptional Individuals, 38(3), 142-151.
Davis, J. R. (2013). Socrates in Homeroom. Teaching Philosophy, 36(3), 217-238. doi:10.5840/teachphil201336331
