Thinking Beyond The Curriculum
Read More“the recent story of Burger King’s “Rebel Whopper” has brought to the forefront of my mind the strange diversity of motivation which make people choose to cut out meat and/or dairy from their diets, and the resulting consequences, and potential for error, within ethical thinking.”
Read More“often neither students or teachers remember the justificatory roots for the powers, privileges and obligations which interplay within the classroom, and that this lack of awareness may well be the source of much student/teacher conflict at school.”
Read More“are those of us in society who chose to be teachers within the current education system actually demonstrating good enough character to be suitable character “role models” for the next generation?”
Read More“sometimes we might fail in our resolutions by January 2nd, or at least by February 1st, but it is not the resolution which is important but the time to reflect and think about our lives.”
Read More“while I currently can listen to all the music in the world that I want to, wherever I am, on any device, through streaming services such as Spotify, the moral philosopher in me begins to ask should I? By not properly compensating the artists I listen to with renumeration for the work they’ve done and the joy it brings me, am I not absolutely complicit in their exploitation? “
Read More“As an atheist I have not practiced religion for a few years, however, just because I went from belief in God to a dis-belief in God does not mean that all the religious beliefs I held are overruled straight away, or in a simplistic and straightforward manner. This fear of hell stays with you forever.“
Read More“A teacher therefore has a duty to model democratic engagement to their students. A teacher not discussing an upcoming election or not having an opinion on the current political situation sends a negative message to their students that political engagement is not important.”
Read More“There is a truth out there, beneath the soundbites and clickbait. There are actual facts about what our politicians have done and what they are planning to do and it is our duty as citizens, whoever we are voting for, to make sure our vote is as fully informed as is possible. A television debate will never give us that. They are nothing more than a PR stunt. Another stop on the campaign trail. A mechanism for repeating buzzwords and talking points. To treat them as anything more than that is to abdicate our democratic responsibilities and leave ourselves open for manipulation and propaganda.”
Read More“Imagine giving a friend a brand new MacBook for their birthday. It is highly likely they will assume the computer is somehow broken, secondhand, or stolen before they would simply accept that you have spent that much money on them and expect nothing in return. Because when something that good is given away for free, for no reason, it makes no sense in a world where everything has a price and where we have been socialised into a worldview that says money has ultimate value and should be collected, even hoarded, as much as possible. To give something of value away for free is the action of a crazy person. Sensible citizens only part with something of value if it will bring them something of more value in return. At least, that is the story we have been conditioned to tell ourselves.”
Read More“as long as we have had Remembrance Day and worn our red poppies, we have continued to have wars. If we truly want to honour those whose lives were lost saving the lives of others we ought to put every effort we can into ensuring the sorts of wars which cost them their lives are never fought again.”
Read More“If we cannot change the past itself then why do we concern ourselves with the ‘what ifs’? Perhaps we may want to conceive that the grass would have been greener in the present if the past had been different...”
Read More“The reason we see lifetime terms as undemocratic is because it is built into the fabric of a democracy that one vote is not enough. The mood of the nation is checked every four or five years for them to reconfirm their last electoral decision, or change their minds about the direction they want their country to go in. There seems no good reason to me why that same principle does not apply for something as significant as Brexit.”
Read More“Philosophy has long had a tradition of asking questions about the difference of appearance versus reality and today I want to talk about how people appear to you compared to how they really may be inside.”
Read More'“Since when did kids have the right to get annoyed at adults, break rules and even participate in Non Violent Direct Action? It happened when you, the generations above me, chose not to act seriously on the climate crisis. The science has been around for 30 years, that’s 30 years of allowing emissions to rise uncontrollably. If people had acted back then, we wouldn’t need to strike now. But they didn’t. You didn’t.”
Read More“I think of the Chinese Room often as a teacher, especially around exam season, and wonder how much our obsession with testing has led to a Chinese Room approach to learning?”
WARNING - THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS DESCRIPTIONS OF DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE
Read More“If I don't even owe it to myself to stay alive what can I really owe myself? “
Read More“although we did watch the same movie on the screen, in our heads, we perceived two very different things. The cause of these alternative experiences being the mental environment into which the sense-data was ultimately processed, our mental experiences of the movie being more than merely passive acceptance of the sights and sounds projected inside the cinema.”
Read More“As someone interested in critical thinking and intellectual analysis I have significant objections to the idea of a completely mindful life, and rather suspect the ascendency of mindfulness as a practice to cure all ailments in the modern day has a lot to do with its overall lack of threat to the status quo.”
Read More“I didn’t actually have a choice as to whether I wanted to accept these benefits or not. Some of these benefits, such as free healthcare, I agreed to as a baby before I had even developed long-term memory because if didn’t, I literally would’ve died. So I only really “chose” the United Kingdom in the same way someone with a gun pointed at them “chooses” to hand over their wallet. In other words, it isn’t really a choice. And if I didn’t choose to obey these rules, who can really call me a traitor?”
Read More“Either the monarch is sovereign or the people are. It cannot be both.”