Event

The Secondary Philosothon will be held on Thursday the 30th of August at the Ballarat Grammar City Site. The event will begin at 5:00pm sharp and run until approximately 9:00pm. Schools and volunteers are encouraged to arrive between 4:30 and 5:00pm.

Students will participate in four rounds of philosophical communities of inquiry. Students will be guided by a facilitator with experience in philosophical communities of inquiry. There will also be a judge in each group for each round.

The judge will award points based on three categories:

Critical Thinking: including understanding, arguing, evaluating, challenging, providing counterexamples, identifying assumptions

Creative Thinking: including contributing original ideas, making links, providing examples, constructing analogies, providing thought experiments

Collaborative Thinking: including engaging appropriately, encouraging peers, showing intellectual humility, building on others' ideas, showing intellectual courage.

At the end of the night, awards will be given out to students and school teams who have engaged in philosophical dialogue to an exceptionally high standard.

Observers are welcome to attend the Secondary Philosothon and volunteers are always needed to help set up. If you are interested, please contact the philosothon coordinator.

VAPS would like to thank Harry Leather and Ballarat Grammar School for generously donating their venue and for supporting VAPS in organising the Secondary Philosothon each year.

Program

Students will participate in four rounds of philosophical communities of inquiry. They will be guided be a facilitator, and observed by a judge in each of these rounds.

Students will be mixed with a variety of other schools in each round. In the first two rounds, students will be in year level groups, and in the last two rounds students will be in mixed age groups.

Each round will have a different stimulus and a probing question. The stimulus items are released to schools prior to the event for students to read and view before attending the night. The questions are not revealed until the round begins on the night. Students' thinking will be provoked by the stimulus item, then the question will focus and guide their discussion in a philosophical direction.

The four stimulus items for this year are:

Round 1: Ethics > Environmental Ethics

Round 2: Metaphysics > Personhood and the Brain

Round 3: Aesthetics > Bringing Arts to Life

Round 4: Epistemology > Epistemic Injustice in Education

You can access the stimuli through google drive here.

Philosophy in Schools Readings

Michael Hand - On the Distinctive Educational Value of Philosophy