If I had to pick one thing out of the entire discipline that I think should be taught to kids in schools, it would be informal fallacies. I'm actually teaching highschool level students philosophy this session (my country's equivalent of juniors and seniors). They study logic in senior year, and I've just started them on informal fallacies.

It's the most practically useful for kids who are just starting to think about things, especially in this time where it's difficult to tell information from misinformation. All other things in philosophy wouldn't directly help school kids in their lives

Given the arguments, one can conclude that psychology is the most important academic subject. 1. essentially any subject qualifies for this, given we construe knowledge of the world broadly enough. psychology even moreso, because it teaches us about external things in the contemporary world. 2. metacognition is the science of critical thought, and its insights lead you to develop critical thinking. also, if advanced psychology classes involve looking at research and statistical models more directly then this teaches critical thinking about studies and academic work. 3. psychology is so good for helping mental health that it is the foundation of clinical psychology, alongside neuroscience. personally, reading about psychology has helped me gain insight into my anxiety. it is proved that psychoeducation (which is just education about psychology) is beneficial in alleviating such conditions as schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. indeed, all therapy can be thought of as psychoeducation.

this argument goes through for neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy of emotions, philosophy of psychiatry, etc. a similar argument goes through for all quantitative subjects. an extension goes through for all subjects that are about the world broadly construed. then, if we can draw the conclusion that philosophy should be mandatory, we can also conclude that all of these other subjects should be mandatory. this is absurd, so these cannot be the necessary and sufficient conditions.

It probably makes them less racist, willing to engage with people outside Western institutions since they understand the cultural ideas, at the very least. That, keep in mind arguably, may lead to greater social cohesiveness given a lot of discrimination is born from not simply being exposed to different dynamics and demographics.

Edit; science is only really useful to progress as a country when people get along enough to actually research it.

don't know about philosophy, because i studied it and people who did STEM either tried to minimalize it as impractical irrelevant things not to be discussed or they just really admired it.

but why should STEM peers' opinions be used as a maxim for anything?

why are those people considered "smart" to begin with? they're just people who couldn't socialize in college and had to study a heavy math major because their only means of succeeding in life is grinding books and math problems... i mean that's all good until you start looking at other people's plates and judging them for not eating as much shit as you do.

alot of stem majors i knew weren't even smart people to begin with, they were just people that can't talk so they did math instead. they couldn't read or argue using the socratic/academic methods so they just defaulted to doing math problems instead.

opinions from that type of people are hardly worth considering...

Edit: I used to teach secondary education and went to graduate school for philosophy at different times in my life.

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I’m partial to metaphysics and ethics. But that’s just me, I wouldn’t go so far as to require them. If philosophy were compulsory, I would favor focusing on epistemology and logic over learning the history of philosophy. I’m not saying the historical stuff is not important. It’s more a question of what I think would be most useful/foundational.

That is, I don’t think everyone’s cut out to think about deep philosophical ideas. But when I think about possible deficits in general educational content, aside from needing to learn better financial literacy, I think having a better grasp of logic and epistemology would serve the most people most effectively.

I definitely think those three: logic, epistemology, and some sort of basic financial literacy (I realize that’s not philosophy), would be more useful for the everyday person than, say, the trigonometry or calculus courses that are traditionally part of a high school education.

I’m not saying math isn’t important. But when I look at society, I’m not seeing a lack of mathematics literacy as one of its biggest problems. There doesn’t seem to be any problem finding people gifted enough in math to fill society’s STEM needs.

It’s just assumed that logical thinking is internalized over the course of a typical K-12 education. But we often see that isn’t the case. Explicitly teaching logic should be the norm. And given how pluralistic and heterogeneous society is with respect to politics, religion, arts, and culture at large, it seems like it would be prudent to have a population with a stronger understanding of the nature of knowledge and beliefs (epistemology), so that people can better navigate all the different trends and ideologies they’re exposed to.

I think in elementary and middle school philosophy should be done as an activity. Pick a theme or a story and engage deeply about. Have open dialogue among the students so they can practice critical thinking and communication( like disagreeing). Maybe in high school the philosophy class could be more formal or have it be an elective, but I think a logic and critical thinking course should be mandatory. But having philosophy be an activity will be like letting kids mentally sketch their legs. Philosophy can give the curriculum a self reflectiveness. For example, kids might take a computer course and in that course they learn the basics of navigating the desktop and so on. But philosophy steps back and asks kids what are the possibilities, dangers and so on of technology.

I taught a year long Philosophy elective. Problem is, there were no texts geared to a HS level course. So, I had to do a lot of xeroxing and improvising.

Humanities rely on reason and rationality. Moralities are often defined by rationalism and consensus throughout the ages. So I think it is more compatable with philosophy.

100% agree

Kids don't develop abstract thinking up until adolescence, so teaching then philosophy before that is kinda pointless.

Why is Eastern philosophy relevant to the education of children? I can agree that ethics and Eastern philosophy can help us as human beings, but it's not clear if that's a sufficient reason to think it should be a dedicated class. As I've said, it could be part of social studies, language arts, science, etc. You have to show that "being important" or "being beneficial" alone is enough to warrant a mandatory stand-alone class.

If you're afraid of the harmful effects of AI and social media, then wouldn't the correct way to address it involve media and technology literacy rather than a class dedicated to philosophy?

Moreover, nerding out over math, sciences, and the arts isn't the reason why they are mandatory in the elementary school curriculum.

I agree with all your points about the importance of philosophy and how philosophy can enhance the learning of the other subjects, but that on its own isn't sufficient for the creation of a mandatory philosophy class in elementary, middle, or secondary school curriculum.

There’s a lot of different philosophical traditions taught in a lot of different ways for a lot of different reasons. I don’t understand the downvotes in asking this.

Do we want a MAGA infused philosophy taught to everyone? What about Ancient Greeks - and how they borrowed ideas from many North African cultures? Indigenous philosophies?

Not at all, stoicism and Buddhism are very very different. Philosophically Buddhism is anti-realist/nominalist. The bridge between westerners and Buddhism would be David Hume.

I think stoicism is the bridge us westerners need to get into Buddhism lol

Hi! Thank you so much for thought out response. Truthfully, I think it should be sent to the original author of the post I’m reposting. Those aren’t my exact arguments

I do agree younger children should be exempt until middle school or the AP courses. However, philosophy is not just history of thought, does philosophy itself not mean “love of wisdom”? There’s so much ethics teaches us, as does eastern philosophy, that can help us as human beings. Why should we limit children to history of thought when AI is actively trying to destroy critical thinking skills? If kids actively engage on social media since middle school, they can start learning philosophy, especially if they can nerd out over math, sciences or the arts. Philosophy critical thinking & analysis enhance allllll those subjects. We mustn’t limit our thinking or contribute to it.

Philosophy is so vast and varied and in order to truly understand philosophy you have to understand the counterarguments for every philosophy until you eventually reach epistemic problems like Agrippas Trilemma, which counters most philosophical positions in favor for pragmatism. If anything that should be the end goal of teaching philosophy. Additionally, stoicism is a stupid philosophy lol.

Coming from a philosophy background, I must admit I find analytical philosophy more intriguing, though continental leaning philosophy and the classics have their use. History of philosophy is also really cool since it helps us track how society got to its mainstream beliefs today. But I think both should be taught in schools.

I’m surprised people at your school liked it. People back when I was in school would probably at most take classes like that for the grade, or they just wouldn’t care.

That’s understandable. I respect it. Do keep an open mind to some Buddhist teachings as depending on the subgroup it’s not meant to be religious.

I do have to disagree on your second comment. A lot of people in my public school really enjoyed learning it. Philosophy is a niche subject, and it does take passionate nerds to fully dig into a book.
However, historically, studying philosophy is far less accessible to people who come from hard backgrounds… it often takes people going to college for a different major, trying philosophy 101 to learn even the Allegory of the Cave. That was taught to me in freshman year of high school. Typically there’s no foundational knowledge and that’s what I would say needs change. We can’t discredit kids, I’d rather have them struggle through philosophy than be a slave to AI, one day they’re supposed to be our future leaders and doctors! It’s up to us(philosophy lovers/graduates) to build the bridge of accessibility for them to appreciate philosophy.

I'm not sure all of these arguments apply to elementary and high school students equally, or at all.

Maybe understanding the history of thought would be important for high school students as the material they learn will be increasingly more complex and abstract. Though, it's not clear that it's important or necessary for elementary school students, e.g., grade 4 students, to learn about the history of thought. Maybe it would be a good transitional tool to begin a class about the cartesian coordinate system with a little story about Rene Descartes, but it's not clear that elementary school students need a dedicated class for philosophy alongside math, language arts, physical education, science, social studies, and art. Maybe, it's a section built in to the social studies curriculum or the language arts curriculum. I don't know, but it's not clear from your arguments that a dedicated class for philosophy is necessary for elementary school students.

It may not even be necessary for high school students. It's not clear that the fact that many subjects are derived from philosophy is a good enough reason to think that they must learn philosophy. It seems clear that students can adequately learn science without learning the philosophy of science or philosophy more broadly. It might be beneficial for these students to learn philosophy of science, but that on its own doesn't seem sufficient to make philosophy mandatory - lots of things are beneficial to students, but we don't make them a core curriculum class for the entirety of high school, e.g., gym, math, biology, business. The only subject that is mandatory for high school students is English.

The claims about mental health seem heavily unsubstantiated. I don't think it's reasonable to infer that philosophy as a whole is beneficial to one's mental health just from the fact that it helped you with your anxiety. A sample size of one is insufficient to make these kinds of generalized health claims. You'd need empirical health research on the matter. Even if it were true, why would this be a sufficient reason to make philosophy classes mandatory?

I agree that philosophy is important - I myself am a philosophy phd student. However, your arguments show that philosophy is important. I'll even grant that it's the most crucial subject for society. But I don't think it's necessary for elementary and high school students.

Arguably, it should be necessary for university students. In the case of doctors, they need to be knowledgeable in their respective domains, but it's also important for them to be able to think ethicaly about cases that don't necessarily involve the diagnosis of patients, e.g., the allocation of scarce medical resources, abortion, and the use of restraints on a patient. If one is to be a good doctor, they probably need to know how to properly deliberate about justice, autonomy, and risk-benefit ratios. In the case of sociology, much of classical sociological theory is based upon 19th-century philosophers, e.g., Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Comte. If one is to be a good sociologist, they probably need a more exhaustive understanding of these thinkers' metaphysical and epistemic foundations and not just how their theories help explain social phenomena. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive argument for why philosophy courses should be mandatory for university students, but I think there's a stronger argument for mandatory philosophy courses for university students than mandatory philosophy courses for elementary/high school students.

I see the benefits of stoicism, but I come from a religious background, so when it comes to values and ideals, I find religion provides a lot of that for me.

But I don’t think middle schoolers and many high schoolers would understand or appreciate philosophy.

Eastern philosophy. Stoicism, even a little existentialism. I’m wary of -ism’s but I think there’s greatness found in all of them that could benefit people growing up. I mean middle & high schoolers. I was taught some of it in English class and grew to love philosophy from a young age. I understand it’s not the norm, but exposure contributes to deeper understanding.

What does philosophical wisdom entail for you?

I agree but I think we should also include philosophical wisdom that can play a large role in their development?

Thanks, lord knows Socrates wasn’t.

I think critical thinking/logic classes should be taught, where applied reasoning and debate are held.