206. THE IDIOTS ARE TAKING OVER - Is Culture Getting More Stupid?
Read More“We teachers are complicit in any increased “dumbness” our culture is showing because we are often the ones dumbing things down for the next generation.“
194. SHOULD THE STATE CARE ABOUT PRIVATE SCHOOLS? - On the Meaning of Independence
Read More“the conversation around VAT on independent schools being a conversation purely based around money, costs and affordability, instead of it being a serious public conversation around education and what a good education should look like is a conversation that fails to address what really ails the current state school system and what the advantages of going to, or working in, the independent sector actually are. “
190. TWO STUDENTS, BOTH ALIKE IN DIGNITY - On The Illusion of Individual Exam Success
Read More"Does a grade truly reflect the work and ability of a student, or is it merely a result of a context and circumstance over which the student is powerless?"
168. IT'S NOT JUST THE KIDS, IT'S US - Why It's Important for Teachers to Look in the Mirror
Read More“in a world where there is a very real epistemological threat coming from falling down online rabbit-holes into algorithm-guided conspiracies, we teachers are spending a lot of our own free-time guided by those very same dangerous algorithms as we hunt and click for hours looking for the perfect clips for our students. We then normalise this behaviour to our students“
164. CHALLENGING UNIFORM - The Unwarranted Assumption Behind What Children Wear at School
Read More“We realised that there was a big, and unjustifiable, leap that has been made to get from the starting assumption of needing a uniform to the end conclusion that children need to be dressing up everyday like businesspeople from a bygone age. That even if you wanted to justify the idea of enforcing a uniform, you needed to go a long way further from that to justify the bizarre uniforms most schools actually make their poor students wear.“
161. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY - On Philosophy Classes and Dangerous Thought
Read More“conspiracy thinking - the initial pathway that leads to conspiracy answers - trades on many of the motivating assumptions of philosophy as an activity: a desire to get to some underlying hidden truth beyond the superficial understanding of everyday life.“
159. TAKING STUDENT SILLINESS SERIOUSLY - Lightning McQueen and the Importance of Battling Deepities
Read More“Like garbage washing up on the shore of a polluted sea, the Philosophy classroom is often where a lot of these deepities come to rest as students, impressed by their apparent wisdom, share them with the one person they think will be equally impressed: their Philosophy teacher. Often those students are soon disappointed, even angry, when that teacher is not impressed at all and, instead, pops the bubble of the illusion and exposes its emptiness.“
158. SOCRATES WEPT - On Resisting The Unexamined Life
Read More“I had some interesting conversations with students this week about first principles. How, once you unpack the thing you are talking about you might realise that you no longer believe what you thought you did, or might even be having a different conversation entirely…“
157. I WON'T MISS SIR - On Naming Our Teachers
Read More“Any time we approach an area of education with an attitude of it being too difficult or even impossible for someone to do something, we make it so through a process of self-fulfilling-prophecy.“
156. USE YOUR ILLUSION - Magicians and Reality
Read More“I used to think it was the clowns who were the real heroes - speaking truth to power about the absurdity of power and mocking those in authority with satire and parody. But nowadays I think it might be the magicians.“
155. THE IMPERMANENCE OF VALUE - Fluctuating Perspectives on Worth
Read More“Philosophers might ask: if value changes all the time, is there really such a thing as value at all? If we can’t pin it down - define it - then is it really anything? Is there anything eternally valuable and undeniably valuable to all? But even in philosophy value fluctuates based on who is doing the valuing. To some thinkers that question is important. Personally, I see no value at all in finding an answer to that question and would rather set my mind to other things.“
154. DISRUPTION - Its Importance and its Impotence
Read More“I’ve been thinking a lot about protest and rebellion the last week….“
151. INSTITUTIONALLY AFRAID - On The Importance Of Acknowledging Institutional Prejudice
Read More“When we refuse, as Rowley has, to acknowledge the institutional nature - the structural nature - of the racism (and misogyny and homophobia) that permeates an organisation we are refusing to fully grasp the nature of the problem, or fully see what such prejudice looks and feels like for those who experience it.“
143. ARTIFICIALLY PRODUCED - Is using ChatGPT To Do Your Work Cheating?
Read More“The following essay for Philosophy Unleashed was produced by AI. ChatGPT to be precise. I asked it to attempt to write a Philosophy Unleashed post on the topic of the ethics of using ChatGPT to cheat in school work, and do it in the style of me as author. I will present the essay to you first, then show you how it came to be. As you read, ask yourself the question: if I hadn’t told you it was artificially generated, would you know that a human being didn’t write this? And if you know my work specifically, would you know that I hadn’t written it?“
140. SABBATICAL - On The Importance of Taking a Break
Read More“It shouldn’t be surprising to realise that, for an animal which literally shuts completely down every night and knocks itself unconscious as a means of essential restoration, stopping is good for human beings.“
132. BLACK HISTORY WITHOUT TEETH - On The Potential Epistemic Deficit of Black History Month
Read More“we need to first address with students core concepts like structural racism, white supremacy and white supremacist thinking, historical constructivism, critical race theory, colonialism, ideology, education policy and curriculum design. Without that, it will be very hard for the students we teach to place any of what they learn during Black History Month into a meaningful, long-term schema of knowledge.“
131. UNWELCOME VISITORS - When Jordan Peterson Came to Michaela
Read More“We should have more unwelcome visitors to our schools, not fewer. More opportunities for students to ask questions and poke holes. More academic freedom to develop an enduring culture of critique and scrutiny so that ideas are never accepted without a fight. If we are worried about the young and impressionable minds of our students, it’s time that we stopped them being so impressionable.“
126. EDUCATED ABOUT EDUCATION - Anarchist Pedagogies and Learning From My Students
Read More“If I had planned an ideal last lesson for you (an actual lesson aimed at teaching you something new) what would we be doing and how would we be doing it?“
112. KILLING THE AUTHENTIC SELF - Why Is It So Hard To Be Yourself At Work?
Read More“It’s time that schools became more diverse, and their staff, at least in the short-term, a little less comfortable.“
111. THE FOG OF WAR - Student Questions Arising From The Situation In Ukraine
Read More“This week, understandably, I have been asked a lot of questions about the ongoing situation in Ukraine.“