Philosophy Phever!

It has been a great week for philosophy at Northcote High School this week!  To find out why read on:

Why study philosophy?

In our global world, there is more need than ever before to engage with ideas critically as well as with empathy. We are facing universal moral questions such as “what should we do about climate change?” that will affect future generations. Teaching these future generations how to think critically, creatively and collaboratively will surely improve their resourcefulness and problem solving abilities. For all of these reasons, teaching philosophy to students is a brilliant idea. Students learn to reflect thoughtfully on their experience of the world, truly realising Northcote High School’s values of curiosity, fairness, humanity and achievement.

A critical part of our Liberal Arts educational vision for Northcote High School is to embed philosophical thinking into our curriculum.  Last year, expert facilitators from The Philosophy Club ran a series of five 2-hour workshops with a cohort of our Year 7 & 8 students.  The experience was a resounding success!  The student feedback collated by Michelle Sowey, Director or The Philosophy Club, affirmed the students’ high degree of interest and perception of its relevance in their lives as interested and active citizens. 

The Philosophy Club Workshops

This week, we welcomed Michelle and her co-facilitator Kai back to Northcote to run an Introductory Workshop with three groups of Year 7 and 8 students from our Accelerated stream.  The students were read a story about two worlds: one windswept and one clockwork.  They considered which world they would most like. There was no end goal, instead the students engaged in open, democratic inquiry where they explored the strengths and weaknesses of different arguments in a safe and respectful environment. 

Our own Philosophers Zone

At Northcote, we’d love for all students to have the opportunity to explicitly learn the skills of philosophical enquiry.  We know that extending this work will undoubtedly benefit student learning.  In fact, a study that involved 1500 children across 48 schools in the UK found that, on average, children who took part in the program “Philosophy for Children” saw two months of progress in their reading and maths outcomes (Piovarchy and D’Olimpio, 2016).

Therefore, we have started our own Philosophy Club!  It runs Wednesday A at lunchtime in L2.  It is open to everyone and is facilitated by our own expert Philosophy teachers. If you think this is something your child might benefit from and enjoy, please encourage them to come along, with their lunch and with their friends! 

Rebekah Keenan-Mount

Lead Teacher, Liberal Arts

Reference:  Piovarchy, A and D’Olimpio, L. (2016) “Want to improve NAPLAN scores? Teach children philosophy” in The Conversation.