"Using Selected Non-Lipman Materials with Year 9"
ABSTRACT
Greg will share and review texts from a variety of sources outside the Lipman corpus which he has used as starters for philosophical discussion in coeducational settings with more able Year 9 students over three years. They can be grouped under the headings: rights and responsibilities, ownership, and intelligence. He is reporting that moral and ethical issues remain pivotal in this age group's thinking. Lesson plans for them appear at the website: http://www.thehub.com.au/~greg/philosophy.html
THE PAPER
We have a cluster group arrangement between three adjacent schools in metropolitan Brisbane wherein invited and nominated students gather with experienced teachers on a variety of topics either once or for a series of sessions. I take the Philosophy cluster for nine hours over three mornings in a semester. I will also offer this same programme in the annual interschool AISQ Days of Excellence on 3rd September 1999.
By experimentation, experience and some insight, I have gathered texts "that work" and found, like in Lisa, that they focus on ethical and moral issues. The are gathered in themes on the website merely for convenience and to provide a major theme for the morning; they are not meant to limit community inquiries which must range far and wide to be authentic.
At the outset, it needs to be noted that the following notes have been devised from discussions; they are not some kind of blueprint for discussion. I use them as lap sheets for supporting discussion, for introducing questions if discussion dries up, or for proposing topics to discuss. Being prepared like this orients me to the material at more depth than at a cold start. Notes can also help continuity if we want to take up the topic again after the lapse of a fortnight or more. It has often happened too that we do not deal with all three texts on the one morning of two hours. One per hour is quite often enough.
The theme of the first day is Ownership where we take up three resources: Sharon's Dilemma, the Madagascan fossil egg, and the Dervish. We open with the moral dilemma faced by the friend of a shoplifter. We critically read the text; we explore the idea of a dilemma; we explore options and possibilities for Sharon; we take other parties' viewpoints; we have moved at times to a discussion of friendship and the limits of loyalty; we try to weigh up social and personal responsibilities. For most boys the outcomes are clear but for the girls the loyalty to the friend emerges as a real value. They try to find a third way. We could move to the relative value of compromise. I believe some philosophical skills we develop are the attempt to define, attempts to weigh options and anticipate outcomes. Dealing with the what ifs' outside the text can get in the way here such as what if Sharon's friend was a regular offender, etc. but learning to focus on what we have is effective in itself too.
A second text is a press cutting dealing with the Andrich family's find of a fossilised Madagascan bird egg on a West Australian beach. You remember the family reburied the egg when the government looked like it would compulsorily take the fossil. Here we could deal with a 'finders' keepers' ethic, our duties to Science and to the whole community in matters of archaeological interest, the right to gain profit from ownership, the limits of ownership. This story also demands interactive discussion about the concept of ownership and rights. It broadens general knowledge and we attempt to reach some understandings about our responsibilities as citizens. It is always provocative and stimulating.
The third text for this topic is The Dervish and the King. This Arabian fable offers sharply different interpretations about ownership. The Dervish makes his claim from long-held conventions of hospitality in the culture and the King from his legitimacy of lineage and rank. They meet and two world views clash. We learn to admire the dervish's courage to stand up the guards and the King at great personal danger; we note that some one has to uphold a principle to give it validity. We discuss the nature of a mistake; the role of etiquette and customs in life; the nature and origin of a truth; and the power of an exception. This story offers rich taking-off points if the issues in it can be brought out. Depending on the maturity of the group, there is the risk that the issues are rated as irrelevant because they are from another culture.
The second day is about Rights and Responsibilities: Mate's Plea, The Make a Wish Foundation, and Fairness is . . . This second topic follows on by picking up issues raised on the first day. 'Mate's plea' relates the first prosecution in the NSW Industrial Court for neglect in Health and Safety at the workplace. We explore various interpretations of an accident at work, possible motives for reactions, the role of a court and the differences between written and unwritten laws. We explore the assumptions behind humane and humanitarian thinking. I find this account challenges and divides groups over unions' and employers' concerns, and reveals to the group our own presuppositions about everyday actions. Again I push the attempt to offer various explanations behind appearances. This always offers at least a feeling of having done some deeper critical reading of the text.
The US 'Make a Wish Foundation' got into some trouble with Erik Ness's wish to shoot a kodiak bear even after he was declared not terminally ill. This is an example of good will and a good idea turning bad in practice. This exercise offers many more grey areas to explore: the limits of the law, exceptions to laws, the overlap between civil and moral laws, and the limits of 'politically correct' thinking are some. We try to deal with 'the lesser evil' principle. We might ask what is the guide to correct behaviour and the origins for our civilised behaviour norms. A whole discussion on social norms can arise here with clashes between peer conformity and individual conscience, and role of personal choice within wider personal freedom apparently available in society today. Local experiences of categorisations and blind thinking always arise. Recently cultural differences between American and Australian cultural norms (aka attitudes to guns and shooting) reminded us that such norms are so often relative to times and places. The old (theological) distinction between animals and humans is seldom observed in this generation.
Finally to sum up and if we have time, we move to an exercise from the Lisa Manual exploring "What is Fairness?" The short story about the teacher being fair by distributing candy equally offers opportunities for more refined definitions. The community of inquiry is challenged to deal with its members' various definitions such as saying that fairness is:
This is necessarily an open-ended discussion.
The third day uses texts grouped broadly under the theme of Intelligence: Can Computers Think? Knowing our Ignorance, and Three Wishes. First, Bill Gates' views on artificial intelligence always offer rich discussion on an area that many students feel they have some experience. Defining and differentiating functions through redefinition, and learning to deal with a metaphor in the term 'thinking' are challenges. Issues about the power of computers, the power of programmers over the rest of us, the rate of change, and the loss of humane decision-making readily arise. It does focus on what future we can envisage and our need to vision a future so that we don't slide into one we don't want or need.
Secondly, we have used Anne Kerwin's Grid of Ignorance. This table highlights what we can and cannot know and what we do know what we refuse to know as a society. It is very useful. It reminds us that we have limits we cannot set, that it takes human intelligence to 'know', that we lose knowledge, that we can rediscover knowledge, that knowledge is always tentative, that new knowledge can reveal mistakes, and that everyone especially philosophers can benefit from an open attitude towards knowledge. This material is a bit rarefied but after two sessions (five hours together) I think it is appropriate to attempt it. Even a somewhat shorter discussion is valuable nonetheless.
Thirdly, I use the 'Legend of the Three Waterfalls of Kiyomizu Temple' (Coil 1994) to take up the issue of Intelligence in making critical choices in life. The text offers a scenario where we must choose one of health, wisdom or love as a life orientation. It forces students to weigh up options and the relative worth of these treasures. The relative benefits of each is explored in discussion and individuals usually get to explain their choices. It reveals to the individual what's valuable in their view of the world. We may then move to critical choices and the irreversibility of some choices. I believe this exercise is valuable for clarifying personal priorities, enhancing individual worth and revealing maturity in the community of inquiry by allowing a variety of different views to stand as equally valid.
As stopgaps along the way, I have found that Aesop's Fables are resources new to these students and in the time available, they offer excellent starters for useful discussion. They also raise the issues of trust, relationships, thinking clearly, fairness and ownership. Being one dimensional texts, they help focus on the moral while at the same time we are establishing protocols in our emerging community of inquiry.
I offer this paper just to report my successes. I do not infer that the Lipman materials be neglected; only that I have had some success using the same methods outside them. I wish you similar success too. #
Summary of philosophical skills practised:
Either identify-categorise-define-explain-apply-justify-hypothesise-judge
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Bibliography
Site posted by G. Smith 7/7/99.