As I have noted down here in Oz the idea of philosophy isn’t taught at all in public schools. I don’t even think I have seen collage classes or the likes offered for what is one of the deepest, most thought provoking subjects that is known to man! I know I haven’t looked deeply but I am sure that it is something that is being considered as irrelevant to today’s age.

And yet it is something that EVERY student should at least learn, even those who have no interest in the wisdom that comes from questioning every aspect of life. For the very least it is the class that embodies education. The sole purpose of Philosophy is to teach the person the act of thinking!

Maybe that is one of the major things that are going wrong these days with education. We are teaching people to remember facts and figures and quote them when necessary such as in -*test*-('")s. Yet we do not teach the ability to think, to reason and to wonder. We don’t even teach them how such facts came about, which in turn is training them to blindly follow what someone ‘in a position to know’ is true.

So I ask, is it the same in other places in the world? Where this most important of subjects is treated as worthless or has been completely removed in favor of training ‘work slaves’ over thinkers.

Depends *how* you teach to students, I think that's the main issue, if you teach philosophy in a rigid way to students that are not interested and you can't get their attention it will end up being some mindless memorization too (that students will forget as soon the class is over) We had a class of philosophy but the teacher was pretty bad and she was not able to involve students in the subject. It also doesn't help when the teacher asks "what is the Truth?" to have answers from students like "Jesus is the Truth".

All in all we had a brush up with Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and others from which we didn't understood much, but at least it could have been a starting point for interested people, for me it was a total turn off as I was kind of disgusted by professional philosophers. I think this is a subject that's very hard to be taught if you can't capture the interests of the kids, as I think we were too immature for this kind of discussions, now I would appreciate more a class like that and I would be able to get more out of it. Again, I think the teacher is the one who makes or breaks this kind of classes....

Yep Adrian, I agree. The teacher is the one who makes or breaks things in this case. However.. unfortunately these days (where Draggy has a point) teaching has become a "prepare for exam" program, and it has to be pretty much followed to the letter otherwise there is not enough time to teach the kids all of the things that they need to be taught in that one year.

However.. as far as age is concerned, and subjects and interest for philosophy.. I think that students ARE interested as long as it strikes their living area. And for that I think you have to pull it out in the extreme to start things off. Get them involved, emotionally, in what is being spoken about. Talk about things going further than bullying, for starters, talk about people beating up other people, and then bring it close. Someone is beating up him or her.. point at the person, see what responses come forward.. would you defend? Why yes or no?

Or.. someone steals something from an old granny and you have the chance to trip them so they can be apprehended. Would you.. yes.. no? I guess maybe with all the philosophers out there one should not start with that, since they are too.. umm.. "paper, stuffy". Start out small in lower ed, with things that interest the kids and then move up from there instead of having them dive head first into the heavy stuff that, indeed, doesn't even interest them since it is too far from them, so to speak.


But.. again we brush against that "time limit" argument. To make time for one thing one must drop something else. We (as in I and my class mates) had this kind of discussions during society class, however.. that is too late already; many looked upon it as a fun yap hour for which you didn't get homework. It didn't teach them to think, not really anyway.

I guess you are right. If you have a teacher who forgets what the purpose behind Philosophy is then the class can really become boring. Learning the name of Philosophers and their thoughts by quote, as if it was history class, for example would really kill the whole purpose behind teaching the students to think deeply, logically or other wise giving different insights into how to view the world.

I have to admit something here. I've taken two classes in the philosophy department at college: Critical Thinking and World Religions. The first... well, while I admit critical thinking is a useful tool, I just couldn't get into the class and ended up dropping it. It was so... dry. The World Religions class was interesting, but I did have a couple problems with the way it was taught. I was taking an anthropology course that same semester, so I had a double dose of religion. More importantly, I was able to compare the two disciplines' approaches to what was essentially the same subject matter. My conclusion? Philosophy doesn't necessarily just teach you to think. It teaches you to think a certain way. That way of thinking is more broad-minded than it used to be, encompassing both Western and non-Western (tho still preferring Western modes of thought and reason), but it makes assumptions about the proper ways to view and analyse the world. For example, my philosophy prof assumed that a supernatural view of the universe was to be taken for granted as natural and proper. Imagine me, a "nonbeliever" as he put it (I guess this is less offensive than "atheist"; who knows?), being faced with this assumption? What does that make me? Because I can see no supernaturalism in the universe, no matter how hard I try, and it's perfectly natural to me. Thus, religion in that class was taught as being different views of the same supernatural reality. (Though, to his credit, he extremely valued the Buddhist and Hindu views, and made me really appreciate the complexity of both their worldviews.)
My anthropology professor, on the other hand, presented a different picture. No, he was not a nonbelieving liberal (if you'll please excuse the term; I mean it only for illustrative purposes). He was actually very Catholic, very politically incorrect (and it was hilarious). The fact that a Catholic could be an anthropologist with no internal struggles puzzled me at first, but I understand it better. He straight out said he didn't understand the atheistic viewpoint, but he also said something that I'm betting the philosophy professor would never agree with: there's a difference between <b>THE TRUTH</b> (religious truths) and the truth (actual scientific truth), and that while the latter is important to us as scientists, we shouldn't forget the former, as it can be culturally true-- in other words, that religion and beliefs serve as a framework around which a society's view of themselves, their environment, the cosmos and their place in it can be placed to make a coherent worldview.

People have differing opinions over what is important to teach. I am also disappointed that the education systems are bent on creating wage slaves rather than thinking citizens, but it's not surprising, given how our money-driven and commerce-driven our society is. However, I don't know that philosophy, as a discipline, is the only way (or even the best way) students can be taught to think. Perhaps the best way to amend our schools to bring out thinkers would be to remove emphasis on -*test*-('") scores and bring back the Socratic method (a philosopher came up with this, I know, but I agree with the ideas in it) or other methods that encourage active learning, rather than passive learning. But, there are sooo many changes that schools in this country need, so I doubt this will happen. After all, our society wants wage slaves, and they're certainly getting them with the status quo.
(Whew, sorry for the book-length reply!)